


November

by fleaflofloyd



Category: Call the Midwife
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Angst, Childhood Sexual Abuse, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/F, Mental Health Issues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-10
Updated: 2020-11-26
Packaged: 2021-03-08 04:00:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 21,459
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26929297
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fleaflofloyd/pseuds/fleaflofloyd
Summary: It's a protective measure, but it still hurts. It still gets to Lucille, even though she's witnessed it and dealt with it and experienced the green grass on the other side.In every way,she reminds herself.---Part of the 'I never thought...' universe. WARNING: heavy subject matter ahead. Please take care.
Relationships: Lucille Anderson/Valerie Dyer
Comments: 1
Kudos: 19





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I've taken inspiration for my original characters from four lovely actors who are phenomenal at their jobs:
> 
> Jared Harris for Charlie Dyer  
> Richard E Grant for Richard Daley  
> Sophie Okonedo for Ruby Dyer  
> Sarah Lancashire for Betty Daley

The little occurrences add up.

Lucille's seen Valerie's tired blue eyes. Has felt the bed dip and lift and shift as Val got up and got back in or shuffled, sleep alluding her. She's held her each time she's cried in the privacy of their room. She's heard the quiet of the spaces where Valerie usually laughed or talked with the others. 

She was missing her grandmother now that November had come again, fresher grief to add to the established ache for her father that the middle of October had brought again.

But now she's retiring to bed by the time Lucille gets home, skipping dinner. Barely eating her toast in the morning. Drinking cups of coffee instead of tea, far too many in an attempt to ward off her exhaustion. Going to work barefaced and pale, with no ribbon adorning her cane.

"She had a headache today," Phyllis tells her in the kitchen, frowning in that concerning way of hers. "I've put her behind the window, but..."

Light duties. 

Away from patients at the clinic. 

Val hasn't done that since March, when her ribs had been better but her leg had still been in a cast. She'd managed to get around on her crutches, getting used to working again after her accident.

"I'll talk to her," Lucille says. 

The curtains are drawn in their room. Valerie's in bed but still in her uniform, the white of her collar visible above the blankets.

Something else is going on here. 

Lucille closes the door quietly and slips off her shoes, picking Val's pair from the middle of the floor and setting them near the wall with hers. 

She was not a messy person. 

"Are you awake, precious?" 

There's a nod of a head, but no effort's made to turn to face Lucille. 

She steps quickly in between the beds and lifts the blankets, sliding in behind Val, her hand coming up to feel her forehead. She notes no fever as her eyes search the bedside table for signs of her ailment.

There's no Panadol or water in sight.

Lucille wraps her arm around Val and settles behind her, quietly kissing her neck. 

"Tell me," she asks against soft skin. 

"Seven." 

_Actively hurting._

She keeps her voice as soft as possible as she asks, "Is there anything I can do?" 

A shake of the head. 

"Just...hold me."

Lucille slides her other hand between Val and the mattress and tightens her embrace, feeling Val lean back into her. She settles her head along Val's. 

"I love you."

She hears Valerie sigh in reply. 

Lucille hopes her presence is enough for now.

\---

She stirs at the shifting of the bed, opening her eyes to Val stretching out, the lamp light suddenly illuminating them.

"What time is it?"

A pause, then, "Twenty past six."

They've missed dinner.

Lucille wonders whether to ask Val if she wants some toast instead.

The question seems to be answered as her love jostles around to face her, struggling to fix the blanket around them. 

She settles eventually, an arm coming around Lucille. Blue eyes find brown from the other end of the pillow, inches away.

"How are you feeling?"

Valerie hums and moves her shoulder in a shrugging gesture.

Lucille notes the worry line in the middle of her forehead. She slides her arm tighter around Val's waist, hoping it's comforting to her.

"Was it a headache today, or something else?"

There's a sigh, then her eyes close, blocking Lucille from seeing the truth. 

She shifts forward carefully, reaching up to place a small kiss to that worry line, leaving her lips there, breathing Valerie in.

She stays there for a long moment, listening to Valerie's clock tick the seconds by.

"It's okay, you don't have to tell me, I just hope you know you can. Any time."

Valerie's head shifts forward towards her lips, and Lucille kisses her quietly again, her thumb tracing a path over her back.

They stay there like that, Lucille content to wait forever if need be, happy just to have Valerie in her arms.

_I love you. I'm not going to push you if you're not--_

"Lu?"

She slides down to eye level, seeing Val peering back at her. "I'm here."

"I'm...when my..." 

Val sighs heavily, frustration evident, and Lucille's heart aches for her. She brushes the tip of her nose against Val's softly, marvelling at the way her eyes settle at the gesture. At the way they seem to decide on something.

"When my Dad died, I kind of...lost myself. It felt like the worst kind of rain cloud over my head, and no matter what I...it wouldn't go away. It happened with Sally too, both times..."

Lucille watches as her eyes close, a forehead shifting to touch her own.

"I think it's back, and I...I don't know what to do."

Lucille instinctively pulls Valerie closer to her, still feeling the shock hit her, even though she'd known something pressing was going on. The acknowledgement of it from Val makes it real.

Makes it hurt more.

Her mind goes back to June in the hospital, using the word _subdued_ to describe Val on her return from the army.

What else had she said?

_Like a light had dimmed inside of her._

The last few weeks have felt like this. Valerie's been muted, not nearly as vibrant as Lucille knew she could be. 

Not her usual self.

Blue eyes are looking back at her, looking to her for help. There's a deep sense of fear in them, and Lucille knows it's from experience.

This has scarred her love in the past.

"Would you liken it to a depression?" Lucille asks carefully.

Valerie nods, certain.

She considers her next words, unsure of what Valerie needs from her, but wanting to help just the same.

"We can discuss this more if you need to. I think that...if you were a patient of mine, I'd recommend you have a talk with Doctor Turner, if you felt comfortable with that. Maybe some time off might--"

Val shakes her head suddenly, the pillow moving. "I can't do that, not this close to the council making their decision."

"Okay, okay," Lucille soothes, patting Val's back. "Maybe not that one, then. Whatever it is you need, precious, I'll help you with, alright?"

Valerie nods and sighs, the weight of her troubles clear across her face. She rolls away and onto her back as Lucille slides her arm back, hand coming to rest on her stomach.

Blue eyes are taking in the ceiling, staring.

Lucille's eyes catch on her old necklace.

She needs to make sure Valerie knows she's not alone in this.

Lucille sits up on her elbow, feeling the pins and needles spring forth as she half leans over her girl. Eyes turn her way in curiosity as she draws her other hand up to touch the necklace.

"I'm here with you, okay? Nothing will ever change that. I promise, and I'll continue to promise it, so you understand."

Lucille knows her words are heard by the way Valerie's eyes well up.

"Oh, honey."

Lucille rolls forward, closing the gap, kissing Valerie's cheek and incidentally tasting the salt there.

"I love you," Val says, her breath catching in a cry.

Lucille kisses her cheek again before Valerie turns her head to seek out her lips. The kiss is hurried, fraught with a need to be distracted, and to distract. Lucille opens her mouth, delving her tongue out against Val's bottom lip, along her teeth, meeting Val's own.

She's pulled in further, sliding on top of Valerie, pouring every bit of love she has into the kiss as it deepens.

They seek comfort from one another this way, seconds turning into minutes as Lucille's mind thinks of nothing else.

It eventually slows, slows, slows to the point where their lips are simply ghosting each other, noses brushing faithfully, sweetly, gently.

"I love you," Lucille whispers. "Always."

Valerie opens her eyes. They're drying now under Lucille's care, in defiance of her heartache, but there's a fatigue there that worries Lucille. She suspects no amount of sleep will cure it.

She fixes the blanket over her side. Settles her head underneath Val's chin, feeling a kiss against her head a moment later. It's slow and prolonged. Hands are steady on her hips, an absent thumb tracing. 

She can hear Valerie's stomach rumbling away.

She plays with the necklace, sliding it here and there with her finger along freckled skin. Looks at it as the memory of that night plays out in her mind.

Their love is yet to find its boundary, still.

She loves this woman with all she has.

But she's been hurting. Is hurt now.

"I love you," she whispers, tapping her finger on every word.

Valerie's hands slide up over her back in response, gripping. Another kiss is placed on her head.

The clock ticks away.

"I need to tell you something," Val says softly, Lucille feeling her jaw move against her head. 

"Okay."

There's a significant pause in which Lucille patiently waits.

Except there are footsteps on the other side of the--

"Nurse Anderson?"

Phyllis's voice is clear through the space, concerned.

"I'm here," Lucille says, trying to keep the vexation she feels at the interruption out of her tone.

"Would you and Nurse Dyer like plates put in the oven?"

Lucille lifts her head. There's a shake of another's and a sigh.

Lucille knows the window of opportunity for Val to say what she was going to has closed.

"Just one plate, Phyllis. I'll be down in a few minutes."

"Okay, lass." There's a pause. "Nurse Dyer, if you should like some toast, there's a fresh jar of strawberry jam from Mrs Buckle in the cupboard."

"T-thanks Phyllis," Val says, stumbling with her words.

"You're welcome."

Footsteps lead away, Lucille peering down at Val.

"Come have a cuppa at least," she encourages, moving to stand, feeling the absence of her immediately.

Valerie nods. "I'll just get my pyjamas on and be down."

\---

Lucille boils the kettle and makes two cups of tea, adding an extra teaspoon of sugar to Val's.

She slides her sausages into her mash and eats it absently, waiting for her love to show.

Val doesn't.

She cleans up after herself, washing the dishes as she hears the Sisters begin compline down the hall.

The great silence is coming.

There's one going on upstairs.

_I need to tell you something._

I need to.

She's on second shift tonight, after Trixie and before Sister Hilda. They've been busy this week, and she's likely to be riding through the cold, rainy streets later.

If she's to coax it out of Val, it needs to be now.

"Is she doing okay?" A voice asks suddenly, and Lucille jumps, whipping around to find Trixie in the doorframe.

"She's..." Lucille pauses, set to tell a lie. 

It's Trixie, though. They've brought her into their confidence about their relationship. She's accommodated them in return, far more than Lucille had ever expected.

She deserves the truth.

"No."

The word is simple. Weighted with meaning.

Trixie holds her gaze. "Is there anything I can do? For either of you?"

Lucille nods and says _yes_ , pulling the plug and reaching for the dishcloth.

"Name it."

"I know Val said she'd prefer to work on the 30th, but I think she needs to have the space to grieve for Elsie."

"I'll run it by Phyllis," Trixie says, understanding. "I think you both should. We've run a lighter crew before and managed."

Val's first few days in the hospital come to mind. 

Lucille shakes her head to dispel the memory, moving towards Trixie.

"I know, I just--I just wish the council would make up their minds, one way or the other. This stagnating in between decisions is not helping anyone. Especially Val."

"Agreed." The blonde's hand comes up to settle on Lucille's crossed arms. "Don't hesitate to ask me if you need anything, okay? You're both very dear to me."

Her eyes are shining.

Lucille's heart warms. She places her hand on Trixie's and squeezes it. "You're dear to us too, Trix. You've helped so much already."

"Still, whatever you need, alright? I mean it."

"Okay."

She hugs her because she needs the comfort. Because she knows Trixie does too. Her eyes are watering but she blinks them back, fearful that if she starts she won't stop.

She needs to get back upstairs.

Pulling back out of the tight embrace, she finds Trixie fighting a losing battle with her eyeliner.

"I'm a mess, aren't I?"

Lucille smiles and pats her gently on the back.

"Come on, I need the tissues anyway."

\---

Valerie is sitting on her bed, facing the window in only her slip and underwear. Her pyjamas are folded next to her, uniform and stockings crumpled on the other side.

Lucille realises she's frozen in thought and lost to the world. Shivering.

It's been nearly forty-five minutes since--

She quickly rounds the beds and places the tissue box on the bedside table, picking up the light blue flannel bottoms.

Val registers her, eyes widening.

"I sat down for a moment to..." She checks her watch, exhaling loudly as her mind catches up. "I should get dressed."

Lucille gives her a reassuring smile, even though her mind is racing. "I'll help."

She's favouring her right leg as they do it. 

Her skin's cold, lacking its usual warmth. 

"Sorry." 

Lucille bends to pick up the top half, drawing it around Valerie as two arms work themselves into it. "It's quite alright, we'll get warmed up in no time."

She fiddles with the buttons, noting the way blue eyes are fixed somewhere on her collarbone, yet to look up.

Lucille watches as Val's head drops further, sinking towards--

A chin comes to rest on her shoulder, seeking something from her.

She needs to get her warm and into bed.

She speeds up her buttoning, doing it blindly now as she melds into Val's body, kissing her ear softly.

"Hang in there, my precious girl," she tells her, onto the last button now.

Then she's done, sliding her arms around Val, hand up to the nape of her neck and one towards her hip. As tight as she can, because Val needs it right now.

She feels herself embraced, slowly, carefully.

_Tell her something kind._

"You're hands down my favourite person in the world."

"Even this way?" Val whispers, voice straining. She's about to cry.

"Yes. Every way you are."

She remembers saying similar words to June when she'd asked about loving Valerie. The world had shrunk down to that hospital room, exposing her to an openness, to a truth that was so excruciatingly clear:

She'd been in love with Valerie, truly and deeply in love with her.

She still is, and no other force in the world is going to sway her feelings. Not the outside world, and certainly not Val's inner turmoil.

She's going to love her through this. She's loved her back to life once, and she's going to do it again.

She's going to do it again and again and again if need be.

This is what she'd meant last year, without really comprehending what the words encompassed.

_In every way._

Yes.

That's what her vow had meant in July. That was what their jewellery meant.

She's going to take the bad with the good. Make the bad good.

Make Valerie better.

_In every--_

Valerie breathes in shakily against her neck and Lucille knows her tears are back. She tightens her hold of her. 

"I'm here, Val. I'm here."

A shuddering breath is exhaled.

"Let's get you into bed."

Lucille directs them, easing Val down, continuing to touch her in some way as she draws the blankets up and tucks them around her.

Valerie's crying quietly, releasing her pent up emotion.

"Sorry," she says again, wiping at her nose.

"Hush now, you just let it out."

She sits beside her and hands her a few tissues. Val wipes her eyes with one hand as her other reaches for Lucille's.

"I think I need..." Valerie pauses and Lucille waits quietly. "I should see the doctor. I know this isn't normal."

Lucille nods solemnly. "I'll get in touch with him tomorrow if you want."

Valerie nods, sinking further into the pillow.

Lucille lifts their joined hands and kisses Val's knuckles.

She needs to ask her now.

"Do you think you can tell me what you were going to say before Phyllis turned up?"

Her hand is firmly squeezed.

Blue eyes shut, closed again against the world.

Against her.

They've come so far this year. Val's let her in and they've become a great team, weathering the good and bad days together.

But there are times when the wall goes up between them again.

Like now.

It's a protective measure, but it still hurts. It still gets to Lucille, even though she's witnessed it and dealt with it and experienced the green grass on the other side.

_In every way,_ she reminds herself.

"We can save it for another rainy day," she tells her quietly.

"No, I..." Blue eyes open and look her way. "I need to tell you."

She can see Val trying to destroy the barrier between them, here in the quiet.

Lucille falls a little more in love with her for it.

"Just give me a moment...please."

"Of course." She looks around and realises what she can do in the meantime. "I'll put the beds together..."

She stands and takes her time. Rolls her bed against Val's. Locks the clasp. Tucks the rolled-up towels into the space between the mattresses. Straightens their blankets over each other. Pulls her pyjamas out from the drawers and tucks them under her pillow.

She says a prayer throughout, asking the Lord to guide Valerie. To ease her suffering. To illuminate the dark for them.

She feels her eyes on her the entire time. Hears her quietly sniffling and composing herself. 

Her eyes are puffy and red, but they're drying when Lucille looks her way again. She smiles gently at her from the other side of the beds, and the gesture is returned.

It's a start.

"I'm ready now."

Lucille slides carefully under the blankets and lays by her side, trailing her hand just under the edge of a pyjama top. Warmer skin meets her index finger, and she revels in the way Valerie slips her arm into the blankets and rests her hand over hers.

Blue eyes stay on the ceiling.

"After Dad died I wanted to drink again like I had after the inquiry. After Sally. Enough to forget my own name. But Mum was barely managing, and Gran had a bad case of gout at the time, so it fell to me to keep it all going. I held down Mums job at the bakery when she was too hungover to get there. I filled in for Gran at the market. Everyone else drank, like us Dyers do when things turn to shit."

She lets out a bitter huff.

"I was going from twelve-hour shifts at the bakery to my job at the Sail, and the market two days a week. I wasn't sleeping, barely got an hour or two a night. I lost my appetite. I was grieving and exhausted and I couldn't--"

Her voice cracks and she squeezes her eyes shut, a tear escaping down the side of her face.

Lucille smoothes her hand further around, gripping Val's waist. It's partly in comfort, but mostly from apprehension. She realises she's holding her breath in fear.

"Val, what happened?"

"I was at my wit's end, but I had to get up early to get to the bakery. I had bread to make and I--Mum told me later that I walked right through the Rotherhithe and all the way to Larkhill."

Lucille freezes at the word.

Her mind falls back to Maureen Walker and her sister Lily. Her heart clenches as she searches Valerie's face.

"I was there three days before someone recognised me and got in touch with Mum. The police weren't concerned, said our family had a habit of going on benders. It was true. She put up a big stink, got a Bermondsey police officer involved instead. Got me out of there and into her care. Those police officers wouldn't admit any wrongdoing. They backed Mum into a corner. She didn't want the family to know so it got swept under the rug. I'd gone to the other side of town to let off some steam, was the official story. No one batted an eye, not in our family. Mum stopped drinking that day, at least."

Lucille feels fingers slide through hers, gripping. She brushes her thumb along soft skin.

"She told me later when I'd sobered up from the sedatives that their opinion was that I'd suffered a nervous breakdown. I hadn't been able to remember my name or where I lived, apparently all I kept saying w-was--" Valerie's voice stumbles and breaks, _"D-dad, please help me..."_

Valerie's face crumbles, a series of sobs escaping her as the truth comes out.

"Oh Val, come here..."

Lucille slides her hand around her neck and shoulders, drawing her close as she sobs. Her weight drops along her side. She kisses her hairline once, twice, three times.

"You're safe now--you can let it all go now. It's okay."

"It-it's not. It's b-back." Valerie cries harder, breath hitching. "I can't h-handle..."

Lucille blinks back her tears, swallowing the lump in her throat. "You've got me now, haven't you, hmm? We've got Trix and Phyllis and the Sisters--and I know your Mum would give you the clothes off her back to keep you safe. To make sure you're well."

Valerie cries out at the mention of her.

Lucille knows she needs to hold onto her rationality. To hold it together for her.

_Keep talking to her._

"I'm gonna help you get through this, okay? You've been so brave tonight--I'm so so proud of you. You're the best thing that's ever happened to me. We're gonna get through this."

She kisses skin again, lifting her hand up into brown hair. She caresses Valerie's scalp with her fingers, combing through longer strands, carefully, quietly. Her other hand slips under Val's top, two fingers running gently up and down her spine.

It's automatic for Lucille; a by-product of being a midwife with cranky babies. It's been her job to care for them, to settle them, to provide for them as their mothers recovered, or watched, or worried.

It takes a long moment of performing the massage before Valerie begins to calm down. Her cries ease slowly, slowly out.

Lucille's mind stumbles throughout it. Goes from the memory of the Walkers to a hospital bed and a version of Valerie, all worked up, short-tempered and ill at ease. Wanting to leave from the moment of her chemical clarity. Walls up. Emotions held in tight on a chapel seat, only spilling when coaxed. When safe. Ferocity she'd never encountered before in their fight, slammed doors and yelled words making way for cold, cold silence.

It all spoke to the truth, sinking deep into Lucille's bones and chest now.

Valerie's melancholia has profoundly affected her.

She was unwell now, in a way that stitches and wet gauze could not fix. 

You stitched skin together, provided adequate measures to ward off infection and waited for the body to heal or to harm.

You set a bone, covered it in plaster, gave clear and concise instructions to rest and let the body heal.

What could she do to cure this invisible injury?

What could she possibly do to help?

She has nothing except her hands and hold. Her fingers to graze and massage. Her arms to comfort and warm.

Her voice, to tell.

Her voice, to...

Pray.

Encourage.

Lighten.

Remind.

Remind.

Remind her of all they'd fought for. All that they had. All that they were striving for.

All that they were to one another, and would be.

It's what she has.

Lucille kisses Valerie's head again and continues her efforts to calm.

And then, mercifully, she is asleep.

Lucille lets her tears come then, lip bitten down to stem the flow.

It won't be enough.

Her cries break free and she weeps for this woman she loves.

Her heart.

She'll breathe life and love back into her, but for now, all she has is this emotion.

These tears.

This whole, cracked apart.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _And that was it, wasn't it? Val's lack of control, to get past her grief, to get through the day, to navigate her way past this despair of hers, was a defining factor. It was all bleeding into each other, fueling problems and furthering this into what had happened tonight._
> 
> _An admission of the truth._
> 
> \--------

_The girl forgets her things on the bus._

_It's the last in an unfortunate series of events, culminating in her standing in the rain, unable to even run after the flaming thing._

_Her leg is killing her._

_But she'd seen the street sign, closer than she'd been told by her uncle's coworker, and knew waiting for the next stop would add unneeded distance to her trip._

_She's already travelled miles._

_Idiot._

_Her clothes are sticking to her now._

_There's no way her makeup hasn't run._

_She exhales a breath, spraying water every which way._

_She starts limping, because what else can she do? She has no money now to call home, her purse in her bag on a nondescript bus._

_St Albans number unknown._

_A rucksack of clothes. Her identification. Her maps. Her bus and train schedules._

_Her umbrella._

_Her gran's letters._

_You are by far the stupidest creature to ever walk this earth._

_She's so close to seeing her uncle._

_A half days worth of travel to get here, missed buses and missed train fraying her nerves._

_Not thinking clearly in her rush._

_In her pain._

_The cold weather is sinking into her shoulder muscle, bruised in a mistake she can't undo._

_What she's too proud to apologise for._

_She won't._

_The significant one had no right to talk to their superior._

_No right at all._

_The girl walks on, feeling the anger soak like the rain._

_Every footfall aches._

_There is something wrong with her leg._

_She's known it for three days._

_Too proud. Too stupid._

_She repeats this mantra until she's at number 50._

_Flower pots hang off the walls beside the door, welcoming._

_She stumbles through the gate, her leg seizing with the effort._

_Slaps the door forcefully. Continues shivering._

_It opens to two middle-aged women, somewhere near her mother's age._

_"Can I help you, hon?" the brunette asks, apprehension making way for a curious worry in her eyes._

_Her face reminds the girl of the significant one._

_She must have the wrong address._

_"I'm looking for Charles Dyer." There's a sinking in the pit of her stomach at the sight of these strangers._

_Not her uncle. Not her uncle. Not her--_

_The brunette takes a half step forward. "I'm his wife--may I ask how--"_

_The girl does not hear the rest, dropping like the rain._

_\---_

_The man rushes through the flat towards the sound of his wife calling his name, finding both her and Betty struggling to lift a figure in the doorway. The rain is soaking them and everything else._

_"What's happened, Ru? Who's this?"_

_"I don't know, she just--does she not look like--"_

_He bends to pick her up and sees the resemblance._

_Stops dead._

_It's his sister's middle girl._

_Little Valerie Dyer, all grown up._

\---

Her tears dry.

The absence of them leaves her with no distraction from the ache in her chest at Valerie's revelation.

Her arms tighten around her love automatically, instinctively in an attempt to shield her, to protect. To comfort her in her sleep, even though she's finally away from her pain.

This is...

This is worse than she'd considered. She'd known something was wrong but had not realised the true depth of it. Had not known Valerie had ended up in that place, however brief her time there was. How an overload of stress and exhaustion had caused her to forget her name and the circumstances of her travel.

A distinct affliction was the underlying cause. Her insomnia and loss of appetite, her wavering emotions, the lack of emotion on some days, accompanying her grief, was all down to this. 

Lucille needs to...

Well, she needs to remove that rum bottle for starters. Remove all trace of their occasional nightcap activity, should Val get into that state again. She doesn't know if--

She doesn't know.

She has no idea if that's where this is going to head. If that past behaviour is going to resurface, the way it had for Trixie, before Portofino.

She doesn't even know if she should ask Trixie for her advice on the matter. Was that appropriate to do? Val had given her permission to call Dr Turner, but did she want anyone else to know what was going on?

Her need for autonomy in her life had nearly ended their relationship in March. Lucille knows she needs to tread carefully, and refrain from taking any decisions away from her, the way she'd mistakenly done so in the past.

And that was it, wasn't it? Val's lack of control, to get past her grief, to get through the day, to navigate her way past this despair of hers, was a defining factor. It was all bleeding into each other, fueling problems and furthering this into what had happened tonight. 

An admission of the truth. 

Lucille knows without a doubt that Val would've continued to keep her stay at Larkhill to herself, had she not been so unwell. Had she not been so fearful that that detachment from reality she'd experienced was around the corner again. The moment to explain it had come and gone with Maureen and Lily, three years ago now. Three extra years to bear that secret when Lucille would've listened without judgement, and still been her friend.

Her love has always kept her cards close to her chest. Lucille's fought to stand beside her, so they can share in the winnings, or fold and learn from their losses. Deal with the hand they're given, daily, weekly, monthly, as God intends it to be.

She doesn't deserve this, Lucille suddenly thinks, feeling the accusation burn in her heart.

She doesn't deserve any of this.

Val is...

Val is everything right in the world. Everything good. Everything she wants and needs, bright and brilliant and profound and silly and kind and...

Lucille blinks her eyes, dispelling the water forming there.

She's going to need to fix her makeup before she heads off tonight. Put Lucille away to become Nurse Anderson. Steady and reliable midwife. Proficient and professional.

Right now, it feels like a herculean effort.

She knows Val has been performing that feat for a while now.

She needs to equal that energy, get through tonight and continue to be there for Val, and for whatever she may need.

It's what she'll do.

\---

The lightened room is her first indication that its morning.

She's alone in the bed, Valerie gone from her side.

How did she...

Lucille sits up and looks at the clock.

8:43am.

She's late. Her alarm's been turned off.

Trixie did not come and get her last night either.

She's slept right through.

And now she needs to pee.

\---

She finds Val and Sister Julienne at the kitchen table, Val still in her pyjamas and the Sister sitting close to her.

Lucille sees a worry to the older woman's eyes when they both look up at her.

"Nurse Dyer has requested your presence this morning when Doctor Turner arrives," she says quietly. "Nurse Crane has also indicated that the two of you both have leave owed to you, should you wish to take it."

Lucille hears Valerie sigh as she sits down in the empty chair beside her.

"I have a job to do," she says, her tone betraying her frustration. She looks to Lucille for help.

"I think a few days may be needed." Lucille notes the half-eaten toast in front of her love, and the way Val's face falls at the suggestion. Lucille lifts her hand to reach for Val's before thinking better of the move. She sets it flat along the table instead. "I need a break, at the very least."

It does the trick. Val's face softens, annoyance making way for concern. "Lucille..."

"How much have you told the Sister?"

Valerie looks at the older woman, before looking back.

Sister Julienne replies, "Valerie has explained that she's felt unwell for some time and that this particular...malaise has occurred in the past." She turns to Valerie. "I truly wish you would consider some time away to rejuvenate your spirits."

"You've given me too much leeway already with my accident and--"

Lucille lifts her hand and places it over Val's. It's not like the Sister doesn't know.

She squeezes it, refusing to let Val pull away from her.

"Why did you turn my alarm off this morning?"

Valerie sighs. "You needed the rest, and I...I needed you for when the doc shows up."

"So that need you're talking about, what you need from me...that works both ways, doesn't it?"

Valerie looks over at the Sister, growing more restless by her presence.

"Don't worry about the Sister now," Lucille tells her, drawing her attention back. "When has she ever not supported you, hmm? You know she's on our side."

"Firmly," the Sister says.

Lucille smiles gently at her, glad she's here.

She turns back to her love. "You know I learnt my lesson when it comes to making decisions for you, but I need you to do this for me. I need a break so I can help you get back on track. I need for us both to take some time. That's what I need. Do you think you can do that for me?"

There's a significant silence as Val ponders the request. Lucille waits quietly, unsure if Val's pride will get in the way. If she can bend a little further under the already straining weight of everything.

A thumb settles across her fingers, hand squeezing back.

"I can't..." Val whispers.

Lucille draws her other hand up to cover Val's wrist.

_Easy now._

"Why not, precious?"

"Because it will win."

"Your melancholy?"

Valerie nods. Lucille watches her swallow thickly before her head drops.

_Get her away from that now._

"So, I'm going to tell you what I know--what I see. I see a kind and wonderful woman who turned off an alarm to let her other half sleep in. Who phoned the doctor of her own accord because she accepts that she needs help. I think that woman is absolutely screaming out for it, to be honest. She wouldn't have called otherwise. She wouldn't be willing to be embarrassed, or frightened of telling her superior if she wasn't seeking it so badly." 

Valerie looks up, but it's only to look past her. Lucille knows she's still listening.

"I think that kind and wonderful woman is brave for it. I know she can be brave in her time away from work because she's brave already. She's been fearful, but she pushed through it last night to tell her story. I know she can push through her fear again and do this for her other half, her better half, some would say."

There's a huff of a laugh from Val, and Lucille feels her eyes water at the sound.

_I love you._

Val looks at her, and oh how blue her eyes are.

"I really need a hug right now," she says.

Lucille lets her hand go and stands, encircling her arms around Val's shoulders. She concentrates on providing the warmest of embraces to her love as a head settles against her chest.

Sister Julienne nods silently at her, taking a hold of Val's hand. "Your troubles are ours, Valerie. Let us lighten the load." 

\---

Doctor Turner is the tipping point in Val's indecisiveness, calmly and quietly opening up about his own problems.

Lucille squeezes his arm later in the foyer, trying to convey her gratitude.

"She's going to get better, Lucille. It's clear she wants to, she just needs time and rest, and a fair amount of love and kindness. You're here to give them to her."

Lucille stills, peering up at him with widening eyes.

He knows.

It's plain to see.

"W-when did you work it out?" she asks, stuttering in her surprise.

He thinks. "Probably Christmas Eve in Saint Cuthberts. You looked as if you were about to lose your entire world. It made me think of Shelagh. She had a terrible bout of tuberculosis before we were married, and I...well, thank the heavens they both pulled through."

Lucille feels her apprehension seep away from her body.

"She knows as well," he continues. "Deduced it that day with the medical journal. It doesn't bother either of us. I hope you know that."

Lucille nods. "Everyone at Nonnatus has an idea of...what we mean to each other. Some of them know for sure, but the others...it's all hearsay. Deniable, if the council or the motherhouse find out. Sometimes I wish I could just say it outright to them, but I can't. Our livelihoods depend on our discretion."

"I'm very sorry that's the case. You have, and will always have our confidence with this matter." 

She smiles up at him. "Thank you. For everything."

"Try and get Val onto the nortriptyline tonight--let me know if she's still drowsy in the morning, she may have to take it earlier in the evening to combat that. It'll take some time before she starts to feel a bit more like herself. Keep an eye on her, if she has a bad reaction we'll try something else. Call me any time, okay?"

Lucille says she will.

"She needs that time away--if there's somewhere the two of you can go, the change of pace will do her good."

Lucille knows a couple of places.

The decision is squarely on Val's shoulders.

She'll go wherever her love leads.

\---

Valerie decides on St Albans.

Lucille goes searching for Richard's work number in her address book. She'd scribbled it down in pencil on one of their Sundays there, in large writing.

There it is.

He picks up on the third ring.

"This is Daley Accounting, Richard Daley speaking, how may I help you?"

"Rich, it's Lucille--tell me, is that offer to visit for a longer spell still available?"

"Oh, Lulu, of course, we'd be over the moon to see you both. When we're you thinking of?"

"Well, tomorrow, if possible. I know it's only Thursday, but Val is actually a little--well, she's had a hard month."

"Is she okay?"

Lucille pauses, thinking about her answer.

"Are you still there, Lulu?"

The nickname had stuck, always a point of amusement between them.

Heaven knows she's going to need that positivity.

"I'm here." She sighs, long and hard. "Val's dealing with a sorrow of sorts, with Elsie's anniversary coming up, and her Dad's last month. More of a head over heart matter, if that makes sense."

There's a silence on the other end of the line that stretches, Lucille more certain with every passing moment that Richard knows what she means.

That there's prior knowledge of this.

"Rich." She says his name quietly, as a prompt.

"Do you remember that day we brought Val back to your neck of the woods?"

How could she have forgotten? She hasn't failed to remember any of her and Val's fight, despite wanting to.

"I do. You never did get those dirt stains out of your trousers, did you?"

He'd politely asked at the time if he could help with the gardening, spotting her in the allotment, tracking Valerie and Charlie's movements toward the front door.

Val had disappeared halfway through that week, ostensibly to locate her uncle now that her cast was off. Sister Julienne had relayed the news of her temporary departure to Lucille, suggesting that time away would allow her to see the error of her ways. Would lead to her apologising to both of them and accepting that Lucille was allowed to voice safety concerns for her.

It had happened eventually, but those three days without her had felt like a nightmare, her frustration building in the emptiness of their room. It had seemed like an insurmountable wall between them, another barrier for Valerie to hide--

"Lulu?"

"Sorry. I was just thinking about it."

"Do you recall me saying how Charlie was the gardener in the family, that it was good work for him?"

"Yes. It's a beautiful garden." 

"It's his way of redirecting certain...family tendencies. He's had some rough spots over the years."

Richard goes quiet again, Lucille suddenly comprehending the situation.

Family tendencies.

_"Oh, you brought wine...what a lovely thought."_

The bottle had never come out again with that first Sunday roast, Ruby instead pouring out fresh lemonade she'd made. Val had fallen in love with it, so it became their regular drink there.

_"Everyone else drank, like us Dyers do..."_

"Oh Rich, when we brought that wine...I'm sorry."

"No need to be sorry, the girls enjoyed it by themselves. Hid it under their bathroom sink behind their lotions and whatever it is you all have in there. Charlie's had some missteps in life but he's a gentleman. A proud and stubborn mule of one."

Lucille smiles. "Sounds familiar."

"A Dyer personality trait." Richard chuckles. "Makes them fierce and faithful though, yes?"

Lucille smiles. "Yes. She certainly is that."

"Look, given how proud Char is, if we could keep this conversation between us for the time being..."

"Of course. Val has--I don't think she'll be able to say much either about why we need the break, but she told me she'd much prefer to see the four of you than her..."

Lucille trails off, keenly aware the Dyer family is a tenuous subject. She knows Valerie has had broken conversations with Charlie about Elsie and June, but nothing substantial. They've been tiptoeing around the past for the last eight months. 

After what June had told her, she knows Charlie has every right to be hostile.

"Val feels a kinship with her uncle," she continues. "With you all really. You've helped her quite a bit, just being yourselves." Lucille sighs and switches the phone to her other ear. "We most likely would've broken up if the four of you hadn't laid down the law with her."

"Well, I don't believe that. She only needed someone like herself to understand, someone brought up like her to set her straight. Charlie and her are one and the same. I'm glad we were there for her, she's a wonderful young lady. You both are."

Her heart warms. "I think she might need that reassurance while we're there. I think she knows she can find it in your home."

"Well, we have plenty of love to give her. She's infinitely worthy of it."

Lucille silently agrees and closes her eyes.

_Thank You for them._

"Is there anything we can bring?" 

"Just yourselves. Charlie'll set Val to work on the weekend if the rain lets up. Probably in the rain, if he has his way."

Lucille knows she and three other voices will veto that long before it happens.

"I'd better pack some knockabout clothes for her, then. And her wellies. For me too, I suppose."

"Aww, Lulu's going to--" he starts singing softly, "--leave a little love in the garden."

Lucille laughs. 

How amazing it is that she's found a kindred spirit in a pale, six foot two accountant.

\---

Sister Monica Joan is in their room, sitting in the armchair by Val's bed, quietly reading to a dozing Valerie. It's all too similar to January and February when her love was laid up in bed, or sitting delicately in the Sisters room, ribs and leg mending. The pair had become great acquaintances in the art of literature, grown closer by circumstance, by a body that needed to rest and another that rested well. 

Valerie hasn't had a book in her hands for longer than five minutes lately. She used to have to demand she turn off the lamp and put the book down.

Sister Monica Joan pauses mid-sentence, looking up at her. Valerie stirs at the sudden silence, turning to face Lucille, offering her a sad smile.

"I think my re-enactment of the trials and tribulations of one Mr Finn has come to an end this afternoon--unless Nurse Anderson wishes for me to continue."

"As lovely as that sounds," Lucille says, moving between the beds, "I have some things to discuss with Valerie."

"Of course. I shall not keep you from such matters." She stands up, placing the book on the bedside table, before tenderly looking at Valerie. "I shall return when you call again. I hope Mr Finn and I have eased your mind, if only for an hour."

"Always," Valerie says quietly, looking especially touched.

Lucille fiddles with the blankets around Valerie as she answers, smiling at the warmth shown to her love. 

Val suddenly takes hold of her hand, in clear view of the Sister.

It's bold, and familiar, and still able to be explained away.

The Sister simply smiles, unfazed. "If there did not exist someone who loved, the sun would become extinct."

"Huckleberry to Hugo," Lucille says. "Impressive." 

"It is but a mere jump in letters--the same kind of happenstance occurred when Nurse Dyer found herself among those who cherish her so. One should not be afraid to treasure a gift, given by God."

Lucille can see understanding in her eyes. 

She must know. Surely.

"Thanks for reading to me."

The Sister looks at Valerie as she and Lucille move towards the door. "It has been the highlight of my day. It always has been."

Lucille shuts the door behind her, seeing Valerie wipe at her eyes as she returns to sit beside her.

"Always knows what to say, doesn't she?"

Val nods, clearing her throat.

Lucille takes her hand once more.

"Richard said they'd love to see you--I had no doubt they would."

"Okay." Her breath shudders out of her. "Maybe tomorrow I'll actually get dressed."

It's said with a contempt that scares Lucille. She needs to fight it, hard.

"Would you have said that about me when I had my earache?"

Val's eyes widen at being called out. At suggesting such a thing. "You had an earache and were unwell."

"And you have an illness and are unwell. Val, you can't treat yourself this way."

Val shakes her head and lets go of Lucille's hand.

Lucille holds on, defiant. Takes it in both hands and kisses it, keeping it held to her cheek.

It does the trick.

Valerie deflates, her blue eyes closing. "Lu..."

"No--shush. I love you and I'm not going to let you pick a fight. We're not having a repeat of March because you need a distraction from your self-loathing. I'd rather...I'd rather just tell you you're amazing, and beautiful and kind--so incredibly kind, I just wish you would be to yourself. You have to be."

"For us?" Val asks, looking at her.

"No, for yourself."

Lucille pauses, kissing those knuckles again. Remembers them cold, blood circulation slowed, a body about to give up.

She will not let her mind do it either.

"Why didn't you tell me when Maureen found out where her sister was?"

Her question is sharp in the silence. She won't utter that places name if she can help it.

Valerie closes her eyes, hiding away.

"Val, I'm just trying to catch up so I can understand. So I can help."

Blue eyes open and they're exhausted. Val is worn out, and Lucille's chest aches at the sight.

She kisses that hand again, unsure what else she can do.

"I love you so much--I'm here, precious girl, I don't know how to fix this, but I'm--"

"I don't remember," Val interrupts. She pauses for a moment, thinking. "All I have is Mum's word about it. I don't even know how I knew it was there in the first place. It's just...blank. When I went in with Maureen, nothing jogged my memory. I thought maybe if something occurred to me I would tell you, but nothing came to me. So I didn't."

"Okay--that's okay. I'm not mad, I'm just trying to understand."

"Well, that makes two of us." 

\---

Val has the nortriptyline that night at seven and is out half an hour later.

Lucille rechecks their suitcases, recalling the last time Val had packed. There are no rollers in sight this time, just a few hair ties and pins in her toiletry bag. A year ago, she would've never guessed that Val would grow her hair out enough to tie it up, for it to be at a length Lucille can comb her fingers through.

Enough to grip at too when she's...

She shakes the thought away, accepting that it may not happen for some time. It's been a few weeks already, but it's simply part of their relationship, something that ebbs and flows. They will again and she trusts in that. She's prepared to love Val in different ways now; make sure she gets her sleep and enjoyment of food back; hold her hand and let her cry; tell her she's loved and that their love is worthwhile.

Despite the situation, she's looking forward to the break. The last consecutive set of days had been with her earache, more of a necessity than a holiday. She's only had her scheduled single days since then, sometimes coinciding with Val's, sometimes not. She's used to Phyllis's fair and regulated shifts, but she also knows the lack of a full weekend has likely contributed to Valerie's mood.

They need a moment to breathe.

The Dyer-Daley houses have become a place to relax for them. When Phyllis marries up their breaks, they'll head to St Albans, a lengthy journey that is always worth the effort. Richard and Betty will have cooked a roast with all the essential sides, and Val and her will spend the half-day catching up with them, before Charlie drives them back. 

They'll both have a new book borrowed from their extensive collection, and Richard's extra dish of apple pie to share with their friends. It never lasts long with a certain sticky-fingered assailant in the house, who'd officially declared it worthy of Queen Elizabeth. Richard had, according to Betty, been extra cheerful that week after the comment.

They're her newfound family.

It makes her miss her own.

It makes her ache, knowing that they see and understand and respect her completely. Love her freely.

Unconditionally.

She doubts she'll ever have that with her parents. She has too many recollections of them adhering to the strict word of God, to Pastor Kellpatrick's interpretation of His words. Too many memories of others excommunicated from their church for the smallest of sins. Too many disdainful comments made in sermons for Lucille to believe anything else. 

God loves her, she knows that, but she's had to make a choice. Love Valerie and keep quiet and hope her parents don't see too far into her life here. Hope they don't interpret her omissions or add the growing number of them up to find the answer.

Her mother won't allow her to be over thirty and unwed. She cannot be married to her job for the rest of her life. That, her mother will interpret. That, her mother will see-through. She's a clever woman. The continuing exclusion of Lucille's love life from the narrative between them will bring about more questions, widen the chasm already starting to grow, now that she's delaying her phone calls home. Making excuses to hang up quickly. To get away from that ache.

Lucille stands, stepping over to their set of drawers before sliding the second one open. She reaches underneath the pile of Valerie's sweaters and pulls out the picture frame of her with her parents, taken a few weeks before she'd set sail for England. 

It had been on her bedside table in Taunton and while rooming with Phyllis, when Lucille had been none the wiser to her feelings for Valerie. It had held pride of place there; she'd considered it as if they were keeping a watchful eye over her, ready to miraculously appear from the photo should trouble strike.

But fanciful imagination had bled into an uneasiness, once she and Valerie had begun their relationship. Kissing her in this room, with that reminder here...

She'd moved it two mornings after Valentine's Day, and there it had stayed.

Compartmentalized away, out of sight, out of mind.

Silly Lucille Anderson, frozen in a photograph, about to leave an island that could not contain her.

_You never saw it coming, did you?_

Well, maybe she had.

She feels the ache as she looks at them now, shrunk down to fit a frame. 

A million miles away and still holding weight over her heart.

She exhales quickly and tucks the frame back into its hiding spot, sequestering it once more.

Valerie is breathing heavily from the other side of the room, dead to the world.

The ache wanes.

It always does.

Valerie is who she chose.

One day, she'll have to make it known. Inform her parents of her decision.

Today is not that day.

This week will be about Val.

Only her.

\---

The limp is pronounced. 

Lucille sees the weight Valerie puts on her cane, reaching her hand around to touch the small of her back.

"Tell me," she says quietly as the others gather in the foyer around them.

"Three." 

Val's attention turns away to Trixie, ending the matter.

"Okay," Sister Julienne starts, "I know we all want to wish Valerie and Lucille an enjoyable break, but firstly, I'd just like to say a few words."

She waits while the room quietens.

"Nurse Dyer, as you all know, has shown great resilience this year recovering from her terrible accident. She took on the responsibility of some of my administrative work while she was bound to the house, and set about wiping down every surface and clearing every cobweb."

"There's one in my room," Sister Monica Joan says to Val, "if you would be so kind."

"I've got it," Trixie tells them, smiling.

"As I was saying, the moment Valerie was ready, she was at the clinic, assisting in whatever light duties Nurse Crane assigned. I know it wasn't easy to be on those crutches."

Valerie doesn't say anything.

Lucille can feel her leaning back into her hand, for reassurance.

Maybe for help.

She tries to gauge her facial features from the side and can't tell.

"...were off them, despite your newly confined routine and a minor hiccup in expectation, you showed great enthusiasm for your work, and continued to be warm, welcoming and professional with our patients. It has been a privilege to watch you...come back to life, so to speak, and I'd like to congratulate you on the strength you've shown this year. I think it deserves a round of applause."

Lucille feels Valerie lean back purposely as the clapping starts. She can see a narrowing of blue eyes and a flash of something.

Lucille holds her hand up quickly, "Sorry everyone, Val has a headache, so if we could..."

The sounds still as Lucille watches that face. Val's pinched look lessens slightly, but she still looks like she wants to be anywhere else.

It's not a headache at all. 

Lucille looks over at Sister Julienne, trying to apologise silently to her in the space between.

Richard appears in the doorway suddenly, minus the suitcases.

"Oh, I didn't realise there were so many of you, goodness."

His eyes find Val through the crowd.

Lucille's heart aches as she watches his face fall.

She can see history repeating in his eyes.

\---

She watches her watch the world go by from the opposite side of the backseat.

Eyelids fight to stay open in the mid-morning traffic.

"You can rest, precious," Lucille tells her softly. "No place to be for a little while."

Val smiles, but it's an empty gesture, meant to placate.

She continues to fight it as if it's the enemy.

A soldier, unwilling to surrender.

\---

_The girl walks and walks and walks, following the bending tunnel, destination known in the far recess of her mind._

_A place in the periphery of her vision, always there, should she take a misstep. Should she get caught._

_A warning from a memory, hazy, fragmented in fear. Forgotten so she could live._

_People wrong in the head go there. Disgusting, perverted sinners. The worst of the worst._

_Are you one of those queers, girly?_

_No, Pop. I'm not._

_You better hope not, otherwise I'll give you what your uncle got._

_The girl forgets._

_The girl remembers fragments, to walk and walk and walk._

_To seek relief._

_The girl forgets._

_November sinks in._


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _It's raining again, the water tapping on the shingles above her head._
> 
> _There's a cellar spider and a cobweb on the ceiling._
> 
> _Lucille has yet to see it._
> 
> \----------

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've taken inspiration for my original characters from four lovely actors who are phenomenal at their jobs:
> 
> Jared Harris for Charlie Dyer  
> Richard E Grant for Richard Daley  
> Sophie Okonedo for Ruby Dyer  
> Sarah Lancashire for Betty Daley
> 
> \----

The two flats are mostly the same. One with a lean-to room attached and a fireplace. The other with a little more space in the kitchen for a table and chairs. Three floors, two bedrooms, one bath each.

Not nearly enough bookshelves.

But Valerie prefers number 50.

It's the door she'd knocked on first. The first one she'd been in.

Seeing her uncle after 20 years, there in his loungeroom, had sealed her preference long before she'd had a conscious thought on the matter. That had come later during her second trip there, with Lucille in tow.

_"They're wonderful. I'm so glad you found him again, Val. The four of them."_

Lucille's words that day come to mind as she stands in the lounge, running her sock covered foot across the green carpet.

She's always wanted to lie down on it.

She doubts she'd be able to get up off the floor with how her leg is at the moment.

She does it anyway. 

Settles on her back, elbows in line with her shoulders so she can rest her head on her palms.

She hears Lucille and Richard stop their conversation about Albert Camus. 

Footfalls rush her way before she feels a presence kneeling beside her.

Lucille's face appears. "Are you alright? What happened?"

Val nods. "Just enjoying the carpet."

Richard's face appears above them both. "Tab! Come here, boy."

Valerie turns her head, confused, as an old black labrador comes through the kitchen towards her.

He immediately starts sniffing her face and licking her, laughter coming from above her.

"Very funny, Rich."

"We have an extra guest," he tells her cheerfully.

Valerie sits up then, Tab still showing affection for her as he sits by her. She and Lucille pat him as he vies for both their attention.

"Tab the lab," Lucille surmises, chuckling.

"We're babysitting for our friends Tony and Phillip," Richard explains. "They love their Hollywood men, that's for sure."

She's always wanted a dog.

Maybe her and Lucille can get one when they find a place.

It seems to be getting closer by the day.

She feels this fact sinking her shoulders as she pats Tab.

He doesn't notice her malaise.

She looks at Lucille, who is already watching her.

She smiles kindly, warmly, full of love.

Her heart hurts in response.

\---

She'd fallen asleep in the car, the nortriptyline weighing down her eyelids despite her desperate wish to stay awake. It had been the lulling motion of the car that had done it, really.

Now that she's lying on an actual bed, the drowsiness is gone.

Valerie watches Lucille move about, tucking their clothes into the drawers, setting up their makeup and toiletries on the top, straightening their gumboots near the stairs. Preparing them for five days here, in this loft.

Right up until Wednesday, when they have to head home.

To a grave she doesn't want to visit.

She shakes the thought away.

There's a carbon copy of this room right through that wall there, on Betty and Richard's side.

Betty and Ruth's side, unofficially.

Living together, in secret.

An example of the life she'll have with Lucille.

It makes her soar and makes her ache.

It's raining again, the water tapping on the shingles above her head.

There's a cellar spider and a cobweb on the ceiling.

Lucille has yet to see it.

The bed unexpectedly dips, a familiar and welcome weight settling along her side. Head coming to rest on her shoulder.

"We have a double bed for a week."

Lucille's left arm wraps around her stomach and Val draws it up, interlocking their fingers. She slips her digits in and out and around, marvelling at how Lucille's golden skin compliments her freckly tone.

"We do. And a spider."

Lucille lifts her head, darting in search of it.

Valerie chuckles and draws their hands up to point him out.

Lucille looks down at her. "Since you're the expert in that particular field..."

Val huffs. "That's because you're all either too short or complete babies."

Lucille draws an elbow up to lean on her hand. "I distinctly remember a certain someone nearly breaking their neck clambering onto the dining room table when a mouse appeared last year."

"Well, that's different. And it was a rat, not a mouse."

"I'm not sure how you could tell," Lucille says, amused. "That elevated spot you and Trixie stayed in while I got the broom was pretty high up."

"Oh please. I remember you squealing just as loud as Trix."

"Squealing because I thought it was a spider she'd seen."

"Well, I'm pretty sure that one--" Val points to the one above them, "--will only dance over your face tonight." She chuckles and adds, "Maybe crawl in your ear."

Lucille slaps her stomach lightly. "Stop it now."

Valerie drops her hand to Lucille's arm and mimics a spider racing up it, laughing when Lucille squirms away.

There's a beat of contemplation between them, an idea brewing.

Lucille starts, "Don't you dare--"

Valerie starts tickling her, going for her ribs, a well known sweet spot.

Lucille does the same, aiming for her hips, but failing at any purchase. She grabs for Val's hands, pulling them away instead.

Valerie fights briefly, before letting Lucille drag her arms out to the side. Her weight slumps on her fully as she realises the laughter feels good.

"Make me laugh every day."

Lucille's chuckles die down, her playful eyes softening into a content, warm hue.

"Okay," she whispers.

No hesitation. No hint of puzzlement. Aware of a need, and willing to fulfill it.

Valerie closes her eyes.

She loves this woman.

Lucille's intuition is going to drag her up from the depths.

Save her.

Lucille's hand pulls hers and guides it to her waist, before leaving it there. It then slides under her armpit, fingers brushing into her hair. She repeats the process with her other hand, her weight shifting.

A thumb slides carefully at her temple.

Valerie opens her eyes. Lucille's brown ones are full of love, willing to care for her deeply.

It's all there.

"I love you," Valerie says.

Lucille leans closer and she stretches up to meet her lips.

They kiss for a long spell, Valerie forgetting herself in the quiet bliss.

But it must end as they catch their breaths.

Lucille settles by her ear, nuzzling her neck softly. "So...guess we aren't getting a cat then." 

Valerie sighs and looks up at the spider. "I s'pose we can have both. Not really fussed."

Her mind drifts back to an old conversation, had after Trixie had met with an aggressive bulldog and had needed to use her bike as a weapon. Val had explained to both her and Lucille that she'd always wanted at least two dogs, whenever she found the space and place to have them. Trix had taken the opportunity to decide that Val would never have them without marrying, that perhaps a goldfish might be more appropriate for her and her perpetual solitude.

"Maybe it's time you found someone," her blonde friend had said as she nervously and unsuccessfully tried to light her cigarette.

Lucille had spoken of wanting a cat then, filling them both in on her childhood pet Jasmine, saving Val from that definitive discussion.

She'd saved her then without--

"Val?"

She tunes back into Lucille's frequency, confused. "Sorry, what did you say?"

"I asked if you had any names picked out for our pets."

"Oh...they were..."

She tries to think, to draw them from her memory because she knows she's worked it out, but it won't come to her.

Her mind's gone blank.

Lucille lifts her head, puzzled.

"I don't remember," she says, watching as brown eyes change.

"It'll probably come to you when you're not thinking about it, like everything...or it could be the..."

Lucille doesn't need to finish her sentence.

The nortriptyline.

An arm slips away and Valerie sees a flash of skin, before a hand is set on her forehead.

"No fever. We need to keep an eye on--"

"I know, I know--" she rolls her eyes at Lucille, "--Doctor Turner said memory loss might occur."

She adds a chuckle.

Lucille's amusement is gone, however. "Val, you will tell me if there's--

"Yes, of course." She tramples down on the unhelpful spike of annoyance she feels. "He made the side effects abundantly clear."

"I know you know. I'm just trying to make sure you're as okay as you can be." Lucille draws her hand down to her cheek and pecks her lips softly. "This is new for me."

"Well, I was just thinking about the time you told me and Trix about Jasmine, so I'm not totally losing it."

"Oh." Lucille pauses, thinking. "You know, I knew you were uncomfortable that night, I just didn't know why."

"Well...now you do. I'm a..."

_Homosexual._

The word sticks in her throat, even now.

Even in this house, where she's the safest she's ever been.

She remembers being unable to look her gran in the eye. How she'd just sat there, knowing the word was about to be used. Feeling as if it was going to--

"Val."

She blinks back. Lucille is furrowing her brow, eyes searching for clarity.

Valerie shakes her head. "Doesn't matter--you're here and I'm here and we...we have a double bed for a bit."

She aims for a smile at the end, unsure of whether she succeeds at it or not.

Lucille leans down and kisses her, unperturbed.

She forgets herself again.

\---

Charlie and Betty arrive home from the post office mid-afternoon, both of them sealing her in a tight hug.

"My favourite niece," Charlie exclaims in her ear.

"Hi, Val." Betty kisses her cheek, smiling in her maternal way, blue eyes sparkling.

They've gotten better at this, now that they know one another better. Now that she knows Valerie is family, in more ways than one.

Their secrets are safe with each other.

"Hang on, we're leaving Lucille out," Charlie says, waving her over. "Come here, Lulu."

"Oh, that bloody nickname," Betty laments, as Val feels Lucille draw in close.

"It doesn't bother me," her love explains. "I've been called worse."

They all move back from one another, arms still embracing.

"Terrible business." Betty kisses Lucille on the cheek in support. "Some people deserve a right walloping. Can't stand 'em."

"Ignorance breeds hate," Charlie adds, moving towards the fridge. "Rich head back to the office, did he?"

"He did," Lucille confirms. "Wanted Betty to know he'll be home in time to help with dinner. I can help as well if--"

"Honey, you two are our guests." Betty looks at Valerie, lips turning up. "You're supposed to be relaxing."

Val shifts her weight from her left leg to her right, using her cane more than she should. She sees Betty check the clock on the wall.

It's four in the afternoon. Too early for tea.

"I do have to start it," Betty continues, "so I'll head over..."

Valerie feels her heartbeat quicken at the thought that--

Lucille says, "Please tell me you're not cooking something extravagant."

The older woman is already moving towards the back door. "Lamb roast."

"Betty," Val and Lucille say at the same time.

"As I said, you're our guests and you deserve a good stay. That involves a good meal."

She disappears out the back door.

Valerie rubs her thumb across her fingers, trying not to think about eating later in front of them.

Lucille's hand touches her elbow and she looks her way.

_It'll be fine,_ she silently tells her with her eyes.

"Will you excuse me--us," Valerie says to Charlie.

Lucille follows her up the stairs to the first-floor landing.

"Lu, they're expecting me to be able to eat like I normally do."

She practically inhales her food here, in love with everything Betty and Rich have made.

Lucille takes her hand. "If you want me to say something I will."

_Oh, by the way, Valerie can't find the energy to chew, let alone taste your food, so your three-hour dinner is going to waste._

She shakes her head at the thought, trying to dislodge the gutting feeling.

"Val, hey--now would be the time, before Betty starts, hmm?"

"I'm...it'll be rude not to try...I'll try, Lu."

She smiles timidly at her love, all the while trying to calm her apprehension.

Her leg is aching.

She can do this. Have a meal with her family.

Eat properly.

_No, you can't._

\---

She hasn't really noticed how often she's missed dinner at Nonnatus in the last few weeks.

It suddenly seems substantial as she anxiously awaits dinner.

She tries to read, seated in the grey armchair in the lounge, but her mind keeps drifting forward and backward in time. To meals she's declined and meals she'll have to accept this week.

Maybe if she gets up early tomorrow morning she can skip breakfast with her family. Pretend she's had a bowl of cereal or something. Maybe drink the equivalency of milk, so the evidence matches her word.

Yes. She'll do that.

Serve herself a half plate of dinner and push it around.

Maybe Tab will help her from under the table.

Valerie looks down at the words on the page, trying to run through them. A distraction from this...

Doctor Turner had used the word _depression_. Lucille had as well.

Valerie has always called it something else:

_I'm in a state._

_I'm just heartbroken._

_I'm tired. I need to get more sleep._

If she can name it at all.

She lets out an exhale, shaking her head. There's a dull pain above her left ear, signalling the start of a headache.

She's read the same sentence five times.

Her concentration is shot.

She changes position on the chair, feeling her calf whine in protest as she tries to settle.

It's a failed endeavour.

Tab opens his eyes to inspect her, before returning to his nap.

_Even the dog can't be bothered with you._

_You can't read a book properly and the dog hates you._

That voice in her head is going to--

She hears the swing of the gate outside and looks back over the armchair to watch the front door open and reveal Ruby.

"Hello, darling," she says enthusiastically, closing her umbrella in the doorway.

Val gets up and hobbles there. "Hi, Ru."

Tab beats her there, Ruth bending down to pat the labrador. "Hello Tabby, alright?"

He leans against her, enjoying the love shown to him.

Ruth looks up at Val. "Your leg alright?" she asks, unwinding her book bags from her shoulders and setting them on the couch. "Rich said you were in need of a holiday."

"I'm okay. Been a bit of a month."

Ruby hugs her warmly, despite being rain-soaked. Tab wanders off.

"Well, we'll soon sort you out. Your uncle is going to drag you around tomorrow, but maybe you and I can head to the market on Sunday, if you're up for it."

The way her leg is right now, she can't think of anything worse. "That sounds lovely."

"Lucille next door?"

Valerie nods. "She all but demanded to help with dinner, Betty wouldn't budge but Rich has a soft spot for her, so..."

Ruby laughs. "That he does."

Val smiles at her, feeling the edges of her apprehension return.

So many people to be present for.

Too many.

She's starting to regret coming.

"Valerie Jane Dyer, you look like your uncle with that worry line. You're going to get wrinkles before your time--tell me how you really are."

_She's standing there in her wet coat, probably wishing for her bath and you're acting like this._

_You're pathetic._

Valerie straightens her back and sees the uneasiness in her aunt's face.

"I'm just a bit tired, is all--let me help you with your coat before you catch something."

Ruby allows her the distraction. Val can tell by her face that the concern is still there.

"You can talk to me--I hope you know that. There's a reason why I'm the best teacher in Hertfordshire."

Ruby points to her rough-looking trophy, made of tinfoil and wood on the fireplace mantel.

Valerie huffs out a breath, thinking back to reading the inscription, written on masking tape her first time here:

_Missus Da yur tha bes tetcar_

It's unnerving how much she reminds her of Lucille.

"All of Hertfordshire?" Val asks, grinning a little.

"Well, that was my own addition, but the point is, what makes me a good one is--"

There's a sudden presence stepping through the kitchen passageway. They both look over.

It's Charlie, freshly bathed.

"Oh Ru, you got caught in it."

Ruby waves him off. "It's only a five-minute walk, nothing to be done about it. Could've been snow. Probably will be, soon enough."

Val uses Charlie's appearance as a chance to get away from Ruby's gentle prodding. "Think I'll wash up for dinner, can't be too much longer."

She offers up a smile, as bright as she can manage, before stepping to grab her cane and through the kitchen towards the stairs.

"You need to talk to her, Char..."

Valerie doesn't hear anymore.

She hobbles up onto the landing and heads for the bathroom. Refuses to look up at her reflection as she runs the soap through her hands, the water ice cold.

She needs to get herself together.

_For heaven's sake._

This is supposed to be a place where she relaxes. Where she and Lucille can be themselves. Where she doesn't need to pretend for the sake of their livelihoods, and by extension everyone else's.

Her headache is thrumming away.

Her leg needs to be rested.

She needs to take something for them.

She just washes her hands, willing the pain away.

When she's done, she turns around to find Tab has followed her up.

"What'aya doing big boy, hmm?"

She drops down on the closed toilet lid, reaching to pat him as he draws as close as he can.

"You wanna come live with me and Lucille and some nuns? Sister Monica Joan would probably over-feed you--you'd like that, I think. Yes, you would."

He seems to grin up at her, none the wiser to her state of mind.

_You don't know how lucky you are_ , she thinks.

\---

The amount of cooked food is smaller than usual.

She puts one slice of lamb, the smallest roast potato and pumpkin she can find, and a spoonful of beans on her plate.

No one says a word about it.

She feels different eyes on her throughout the meal, even though the conversation flows easily. Simply. On around her.

She can't bear to look at her food and she can't bear to look up. She fixes her eyes on the salt shaker north of her hand.

Lucille has told them something.

Valerie knows it as surely as she knows she is sick.

\---

The rain is pelting down on the roof now, lashing the sole window in the loft. It's already colder here than in the rest of the house, Charlie's bar heater ready and waiting to be used. Val knows she should've turned it on two hours ago to compensate for it.

Lucille had told her to do so.

Another thing forgotten.

_Fool._

She hears the stairs creak, waiting for Lucille to appear in the short passageway.

"Val, I thought..."

She doesn't finish it. Only steps to the heater and switches it on, adjusting the dials.

"Sorry."

She's sorry for all of this. For letting this thing come back into her life.

Their life.

Lucille opens the second drawer and pulls out two jumpers, handing one to Valerie.

"I expected you to be angry with me about dinner," she says as she sits beside her, slipping the garment over her head.

"I can't get up the energy for it."

It's the truth.

Lucille lifts a hand to check her forehead.

"Still okay. Slip your jumper on though."

"I think I just want to go to bed."

"Oh...of course."

Lucille gets up and finds Val's pyjamas, turning back to face her.

"Do you want me to run you a bath? I could wash that hair of yours."

It sounds like heaven.

She needs to get there though. A wall is starting to build its way up, between her needs and her energy.

"Maybe tomorrow."

It's a compromise.

"Okay." Lucille settles back down beside her, beginning to unbutton her shirt. "I'd like us to talk about your appetite when you're ready...it's probably my biggest worry right now."

She leaves the sentence there in between them as she works her way down and draws the material off Val's shoulders.

Val peers at her.

It's just them.

Just them here.

"There's no...just the thought of chewing and the energy that it takes wears me out. Sometimes I just forget."

She says it all quietly, sure Lucille misses it with the rain.

Brown eyes widen, telling a different story.

Val shivers in response to the look, or the cold, or both.

Lucille draws the pyjama top quickly over her head. "Let's get you properly dressed and then we can--stand up now, precious."

Val does as she's told, Lucille making quick work of her cropped trousers and slipping her pyjama bottoms up.

She's directed around the bed and into it, warm blankets covering her up.

Lucille picks up her cane and places it against the bedside drawers, within reach.

"I have a headache and my leg is really sore."

It's another truth told, in an effort to keep the wall down.

"I can help with that--I'll just pop down and say good night and bring some water back for you."

Valerie nods. "Will you be quick?"

Lucille kisses her forehead. "I'll be faster than Ann Packer."

Val watches her go, missing her already.

She thinks about that silly metaphor of hers from July. How it had led to a promise and a necklace and their first night together.

Lucille had directed it all.

Valerie needs that again. She needs Lucille to take the reigns and steer them through this before she gets stuck too far in the mud.

_Max._

_Max or Daisy._

She remembers the two pet names she'd decided on, set in stone for whenever she manages to find a place of her own. She thought she'd have to do it by herself, resigned to always be in the shadows.

But she isn't.

_You are. You think she's gonna stick around to deal with this?_

She realises her heart's thundering away in her chest.

Lucille loves her. Lucille will stay.

_You're a fool. She'll see you for what you really are:_

_A filthy queer._

The sentence comes to her in a familiar voice, deep and forceful, distinctly male.

The words cut to the bone.

Val's still trying to calm down when a fresh-faced Lucille returns with a glass of water.

"Not quite Ann's time but my own record, I think..."

She hands over the glass and Val's medicine, busying herself with changing.

Val swallows an extra two Panadol while Lucille isn't looking.

Wonders what it would feel like to swallow the entire pack of nortriptyline.

She wouldn't be feeling this way.

She wouldn't have voices in her head, repeating and repeating and repeating.

She lies down, closing her eyes, aware of Lucille at the end of the bed, fixing her hair.

Kneeling to pray.

The whispered _amen_.

Drawing close when she gets into bed, securing an arm over her. 

Valerie opens her eyes to find they're sharing the same pillow, facing one another.

"You alright to talk now?"

Val nods.

The silence lingers, the whirring of the heater fighting the sound of the rain.

"I'm right here, Val."

"I know. You're very much felt." She lifts her hand up and slides it over her love's hip, drawing them closer together.

"It's hard...eating, I mean."

Lucille smiles softly at her. "You did well at dinner."

She'd forced herself to clear her plate of its small contents, supposing it was a decent enough attempt at normalcy.

"They're the best cooks I know," Val adds.

"Agreed."

"What exactly did you tell them?"

Lucille exhales. "I said that you were having some difficulty eating the way you normally have here in the past, and that any comment, however well-intentioned, may make it worse. Betty understood and halved the meal, as you saw. Rich vetoed dessert altogether, although I did just see Charlie in front of the fridge, looking for something else."

Her father, dead in the gleam of his own fridge light, appears in her mind. 

The thought stings.

There's a beat of comprehension as Lucille catches on. Val can see the way her eyes apologise before she finds the words.

"S'okay, Lu. It's just a coincidence. Nothing more."

"No--it's been affecting you this last month, you're allowed to still be grieving for him."

"It's been nine years," she says bluntly, shaking her head on the pillow. "I need to grow up and stop this rot. Pull my damn head in."

Lucille's hand at her back slides down, and then under her pyjama top. Warm fingers rub back and forth across her skin.

She's so tired of feeling like this. 

"You don't need to do anything right now," Lucille tells her, voice clear. "Just be with me here, in our little space, before those beautiful blue eyes of yours shut for the night. Sound good?"

Val sighs before nodding, sinking further into her love's embrace.

A kiss is placed quietly on her cheek.

"Everything hurts," she admits, closing her eyes.

"I'm going to make it better. I promise you that, Valerie."

Another kiss is given, this time lower, at the side of her mouth.

She waits for the next one, drawing her head sideways to capture Lucille's lips.

Lucille lets her, kissing back softly.

It lulls her toward oblivion.

\---

_The girl walks._

_Down and around the streets of Poplar, head buried in a book._

_Unaware of the world._

_Seemingly unaware of her destination, though the girl knows where to turn._

_A stop-off point for the travellers of the sea. For those down on their luck. For those who would like to forget._

_The girl will forget in less than two hours, but for now, she is heading where her senses lead._

_An admission, a fight and a fractured cheekbone are upcoming events time will afford to her._

_A building waits for her arrival._

_The monster will come too._

\---

The rain stops overnight.

Charlie gets her out in the non-waterlogged parts of the garden, pulling at weeds and planting tulips and trimming the hedges.

"Bought the place because of them," he tells her, launching into how a trip to Hampton Court Maze had planted the idea in his mind.

"Pun intended," he laughs to himself.

They're at least three feet above Val's head, wrapped mostly around the fence line. The only section without greenery is the place where the garden shed is.

It's private.

Keeping up the premise.

Val wonders if she'll have a backyard with Lucille.

A garden.

A life away from this withering of her mind.

"Good god I want a drink."

The statement pulls her attention back to her uncle, looking down at the hedge trimmers in his hands.

Val has never seen him with alcohol. Not once in eight months. She thinks he might be the dryest Dyer she knows.

She's suspected there was a reason for it.

She wants an inch worth of rum, she realises.

"Me too."

He looks her in the eye and she sees resignation and sadness. Emotions she's never seen before on him.

"Lucille removed the alcohol from our room on Thursday. I probably woulda necked the rest of it with...how I've been feeling. How long's it been for you?"

"Six years, eight months and twenty-three days."

Her eyes widen. His precision of it is alarming. It's been a problem, just like it's been for a good chunk of Dyer's.

"That's a long time, Char."

He smiles pensively. "Some days it feels like an eternity. Like I might not make it another day. Other times...it's just a mark on the calendar."

"What happened to make you decide to..."

She trails off, suddenly thinking it might be an overstep. They've been dancing around subjects too close to home, like her mother, and Gran's death. She's not even sure if he's read her letters.

He looks down at the tool in his hands. "Rich gave me an ultimatum. Him or the bottle. The girls backed him up. Had my suitcase packed and everything. I'd gotten as bad as I'd been twenty years ago, after..."

He pauses and she knows what event he's referring to. Her Mum had told her about it in the hospital, right after she'd confessed her own inclinations.

They're yet to discuss it. 

"I don't think there was a day in two months where I didn't drink. Nearly lost my job a few times over the years--but you know Betty's brother is further up the chain there--saved my neck each time."

Valerie remembers the red wine she and Lucille had brought their first time visiting together, unaware they were causing an issue.

"I'm sorry about the wine--that must've been difficult."

"Oh, that's water under the bridge, darling--I'm positive your aunt's enjoyed it by themselves. There's a hiding spot somewhere in their flat."

"I don't think they'd do that," Val tells him.

"No--I've smelt alcohol on their breaths, when they're a little too merry on their birthdays, or Christmas and New Year. I don't blame them. It's not their fault they live with a drunk."

He turns and starts snipping the hedge again.

Valerie watches him work for a minute, sure he's wrong.

The four of them are a unit.

Steady.

Surely not.

\---

The rain comes back half an hour later, cutting short their time outside.

Charlie says he plans to continue on in the lean-to, potting away, telling her she can go rest her leg.

"It's not bothering me," Val says, even though it is.

"Your limping tells a different story." He sighs and leans in to kiss her temple. "Don't get caught up in too many lies, Valerie. It won't do you any good."

\---

His words stay with her.

So does the suggestion of the hiding spot.

Val has some Panadol, then some more.

Goes to Ruby and Betty's side, to find Lucille winning at scrabble.

Tab gets up from his spot at the stairs to sit by her leg.

"You have a shadow," Lucille says quietly, smiling down at the labrador.

Val pats him mostly, eyes scanning the room.

_Under the sink?_

_Too obvious._

"She's wiping the floor with us," Betty explains.

"She reads the dictionary for fun," Valerie tells them, "so I'm not surprised."

"Hey--don't tell them my secrets." Lucille shakes her head in mock annoyance.

"Well, she can't be good at everything," Ruby states. "Shall we play gin rummy, now that we can pair up?"

She could do with a gin too.

Val finds three agreeable faces waiting for her answer.

"Sure."

She's a team player.

She also needs the distraction.

_Stop thinking about it._

\---

She and Lucille win four games to one.

"What has she lost, and can we play it?" Ruth asks Val.

"Tic Tac Toe is about it, I'm afraid. Found myself a real game nerd."

Lucille slaps her arm playfully, Val feigning hurt.

It gives her a laugh.

Lucille smiles knowingly, like she's checked off a daily requirement.

\---

Dinner is chops and mash, with broccoli and carrot.

Valerie eats slowly, trying to concentrate on the flavours. 

She does not finish her second chop or the broccoli.

No one pays it any mind.

It's simply a fact of life.

Lucille's foot brushes her leg under the table, her smile bright when Val looks her way.

\---

The garden work from the morning has weighed down her legs considerably by the time they retire to the bath.

"Think your shadow wants one too," Lucille says, testing the running water.

Val looks toward the open doorway at Tab, sitting quietly at the ending of the carpet.

"Sorry buddy," she says, patting him gently on the head. "Only room for two."

She shuts the door and turns back to find Lucille peering up at her.

"You want to share?"

Val starts unbuttoning her shirt. "Well, it's not like there's a gaggle of nuns here to dissuade us..."

Lucille nods. "First time for everything."

Val smiles. "I finally get to see you naked in the bath, after all those times you saw me."

"Yes--" Lucille begins stripping "--luckily that job didn't fall to Sister Julienne, otherwise we'd still be dancing around each other."

"And with my two left feet, that would be disastrous."

Lucille pauses her actions, looking at Valerie squarely.

"What?"

She drops her skirt and steps over, gently pecking her lips.

"What was that for?"

"Just for being you."

The ache travels up from her leg into her chest at the words.

They continue disrobing and settle down into the bath, Valerie in front, head dropping against Lucille's shoulder.

Two arms wrap securely around her.

The hot water is glorious for her aches.

"This is heaven."

Lucille hums quietly in her ear, sliding a flat hand over her stomach.

Val feels a tendril of arousal slip towards her nether regions.

"Do that again," she says softly.

Lucille does so, sliding further up to the underside of her breast. She maintains the softness.

Val breathes out an enjoyable sigh.

"Good?" Lucille asks, kissing her forehead.

"Mmm."

She turns further back, searching for Lucille's lips, kissing her lazily, appreciatively, searching for nothing more than this in the pink tub.

She's not sure if she can manage anything else.

Lucille's hand stills, as if she's read her mind.

It's enough.

The kiss ends. Lucille continues to peck at her temple as she settles back against her shoulder.

"I love you."

"Love you too."

It's enough for now.

\---

_The girl is cowering by the edge of the bar, crouched down out of sight as the monster and the man swing their hands, aiming to connect. The man does, blood pouring from the nose of the monster, the familiar women trying desperately to intervene._

_The monster hits the man's face hard, sending him careening back against the bar, dropping to the ground near the girl._

_The monster reaches down, looking over as the man turns his head--_

_A pair of black and a pair of blue eyes stare back at her, surprise blooming--_

_She is not supposed to be here, hidden away from the fighting and the yelling. Hidden away from her mother's eyes and her grandmother's reach._

_They will never know._

_She escapes the way she came, running--_

_The girl will not remember--_

Valerie jars out from under the memory, crying out in a wordless scream as her body shoots up.

She was, she was--

The darkness is overwhelming, disorientating her--

"Valerie, hey, hey--look at me now..."

She follows the voice and finds Lucille in the dark, reaching for her.

"Come here, precious," she implores.

Val falls toward her. "I was there, I was there, Lu, why didn't I--why didn't I--"

Then she is lost in the flood, swept under as it pours out of her.

She can't breathe. 

She can't breathe--

She remembers.

She can't keep--

She will not remember the rest.

Something deep inside her is telling her not to.

She will not.

She will not.

She will--

Her lungs are burning.

She can't--

She blinks and she's in her hospital bed, Lucille speaking--

"You need to take small breaths, okay? Like this--"

Lucille breathes, in short, measured lengths.

Val fights her panic, fights for air to--

Her surroundings fade back into the loft, Lucille there, encouraging her carefully, slowly--

"You're okay, just breathe Val, it's just a nightmare."

"It wasn't," she manages to say, feeling the pain in her chest lessening. "I was there."

"Tell me when you're calm, okay? Just breathe, precious."

There are forms appearing in the corner of her eye, fast approaching--

Val concentrates on Lucille, feeling herself shaking now.

Her uncles appear, looking distressed.

"What the hell happened?" Charlie says, hand on Val's arm. "Are you--"

_The girl sees the man, battered and bruised, lying on the floor of the Sail._

_Broken._

Valerie reaches up, cupping his cheek, brushing a trembling thumb across a long disappeared wound. She can't keep her hand still.

"Char..."

She sees his face change.

"I was there," Val whispers.

He nods. "You were. I didn't know if you--every time I've thought about that day I've wanted to drink, so I don't think about it. I should've said something the day you turned back up, made sure you--"

"I should've done something," she cries, knowing she never could have.

Not against her grandfather's fists.

Something is prickling at the back of her mind, dangerously--

"You were a little girl, and he...they thought they knew better. There's nothing you could've done sweetheart."

She falls toward him, latching on hard and fast, his warmth enveloping her.

Something is--

She needs to get away from--

She needs a drink.

She feels Lucille's hand slide up under her pyjama top, rubbing along the bottom of her spine.

It's meant to lull. To calm.

To settle.

To soothe.

Some ill-defined length of time passes, two other voices reaching her ears. 

Ruby and Betty.

Her eyes grow heavy from Lucille's ministrations.

She does not let go of Charlie.

The five of them are talking, but the words sound foreign, indecipherable to her fogging mind.

It's the nortripty--

She will not go back to--

She will-- 

The darkness meets her where the monster lurks.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _It will be discovered, she knows, but for now, the girl has succeeded in her task._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A trigger warning is needed for this particular chapter, as a childhood sexual assault occurs. It is brief, and not in great descriptive detail, but it is there and will be dealt with in the next chapter or so.
> 
> Please take care while reading.
> 
> This, unfortunately, is a little close to home, so I'll be wrapping this November fic up in a chapter or two. I'd really love to get back to happy!Val. She's the one I wanna write about, before the inevitable Xmas special is here and canon goes to shit.
> 
> \-----

_The girl is running home when her Pop's van careens onto the curb in front of her, dangerously close._

_Get in, girly. We're going for a drive._

_She does not want to._

_She chooses to run and he chases her down, slapping her face and twisting her arm._

_She submits in fear._

_She is 11 years old and there is blood on his shirt. Her uncle's blood._

_She has always been afraid of him._

_She never stops being afraid of him._

_Because of today._

_Because of what's about to occur._

_She will scrub her mind clean of it, unable to accept the casual disregard of her grandfather's actions._

_Somewhere inside, however, the girl knows._

_It is seared there, in her gut._

_Her first scar._

\---

_The building of Larkhill looms large over her, the monster's grip tight enough to leave bruises._

_If I ever hear about you being a filthy queer like him, I will beat you until you're black and blue. Dump you here where you will never see the sun again. Do you understand?_

_She nods her head._

_She can smell the alcohol on him._

_Her arm is aching._

_The part inside of her, that has begun to wonder about red hair and softness and wanting, shrinks down._

_Shrinks away to a safe place._

_Do you hear me, girly?!_

_His words pierce her ears, his stale breath against her cheek._

_Y-yes, Pop. I h-hear you._

_He put his filthy cock where it don't belong. I'd rather he put it in you--_

_The monster's hand suddenly cups her below area, grabbing at it._

_\--the disgusting, filthy sodomite._

_The girl does not move. She cannot move._

_It is beyond comprehension._

_The monster spits, and it hits her shoe._

_He lets go._

_It will come back in fragments when the girl is 23, walking and walking in search of relief._

_In search of a darkness to match her own._

_A preferred place to her Pop's hands, even though he is long gone._

_She is hurt._

_She is a little girl, frozen in the eternity of three seconds._

\---

Lucille wakes to the bed shifting, peeling her eyes open to find Val steadying herself on her legs, walking cane in hand.

The loft window is showing the barest of light in the early morning sky; it's clear Valerie is up on the wrong end of the sunrise.

Lucille flicks the lamp on, the movement and light stilling Val's attempt to escape. She turns around quickly.

"Ru said she was heading off to the market today so I thought I'd join her. The early bird gets the worm and all that. Hope the rain holds off."

It's spoken at speed, with hardly a pause.

"Bit early, isn't it?"

"No--I'll probably manage the walk around but I think I'll ask Ru if we can drive there, save my leg. Maybe I'll swallow a few Panadol before I go too, I think all it needs is a bit of exercise, stretch out my calf. Can't spend my life in bed. Hope that man is there with the strawberries--they were spectacular."

Lucille's heartbeat quickens.

It's a rant, spat out collectively, with no regard to pace or patience.

The appetite for food is back, it seems.

Lucille watches Valerie turn, wrenching a drawer open and rummaging through their clothes for something to wear.

She should be resting after the emotional toll of last night.

"Come here a second, precious."

"Look, I don't want to miss--"

"I doubt Ru's even awake yet. Just come here."

Val huffs out a breath, head dropping before she shuffles to Lucille's side of the bed and sits down.

She's pale. Hasn't looked Lucille in the eye yet, fiddling with the garments in her hands instead. A button is pulled at repeatedly.

It's restless energy, the kind that cannot be cured with sleep.

Lucille sets a hand there, and squeezes her fingers. Valerie's hand stills.

She looks up.

"I think we need to phone Doctor Turner today, tell him about your panic attack and see if he--"

"Lu, he can't do anything from Poplar. I just want to go spend some time with Ru before she has to go back to work tomorrow--we should've come up during the Christmas holidays when they all had time--"

"Val, you're unwell and supposed to be resting--doctors orders, right?"

The shake of Val's head is fierce and jarring. "He said I needed some time from work, not to sit around all day moaning and complaining. I'm sure you dont want to hear it, and I don't want to do it, and Ru and Betty and Rich and Char don't want that either. Look, I'll be out in the fresh air, freezing for a bit but this is good--I'm getting on with it, aren't I?"

She doesn't wait for an answer, standing up so fast Lucille feels like she's gotten whiplash.

Pyjamas are flung and clothes are slipped into, Lucille wondering if maybe this is what Valerie needs. A sense of purpose for the day. The garden work -- or possibly her panic attack and recollection of the past -- have brought this renewal of energy back. 

The nortriptyline would not have worked this fast, but maybe this is simply Val taking charge of her life.

This is what she wants.

A spark of the old Valerie back.

Maybe her over-exuberance is a deliberate action. Meant to trick her body into responding.

Her smile and positive energy after Barbara's passing had encouraged Lucille and their friends. Had eased the weight of sorrow for brief interludes, enough so they could breathe through it. Grieve and settle and grieve and slowly move forward.

This was just her way of getting going again.

Lucille blinks back to the room to find Valerie raking her brush through her hair. She pulls the covers off and gets up, quickly approaching.

"Take it easy on your leg, alright? I'll be checking with Ru to see that you have."

Valerie nods, bouncing. "Lu and Ru making sure I follow through."

Lucille chuckles and shakes her head, before pecking Val on the lips. She brings a hand up to Val's hair.

"First order of business when we get home is you getting these split ends sorted."

Valerie salutes her, offers up one more kiss, then bounds off. "See you later, chick."

\---

_The girl lets herself in the back door of number 48, easing it slowly closed._

_She checks the kitchen cupboards and under the sink, just in case the familiar women have gone with a hiding place too obvious._

_They haven't._

_The girl checks behind the fridge. No luck._

_Next is the cupboard under the stairs. Nothing is in there except a broom, a mop, a bucket and an upright vacuum cleaner._

_She steps quietly through to the lounge, checking behind the couch. In the drawers of the record player stand. Behind the upright records._

_She comes up with nothing._

_The girl isn't surprised by that. The familiar women are smart and have lived with the man for a long time._

_They are considerate in a compassionate way, reminding the girl of the best parts of--_

_The girl shakes her head._

_It is here somewhere._

_It must be upstairs._

_The girl can use a lie to cover her tracks in the bathroom._

_Sorry. The other was occupied and I really needed to go._

_Easy._

_She still does her best to hide her footsteps up the stairs, wincing and stilling when they creak._

_She shuts the bathroom door behind her and searches._

_Finds the curve of a bottle under the sink, not quite hidden properly. Unlikely to have been seen if the girl was not actively searching for it._

_She memorises the exact way the bleach bottle and old boxes of pads and tampons are in front of it. Slides them aside and pulls two 100ml bottles of Babysham out._

_Jackpot._

_It will be discovered, she knows, but for now, the girl has succeeded in her task._

_She gets the bottles out of the flat and drinks them in the slowly lightening sky, a pair of kind animal eyes peering up at her._

_You're disgusting._

_The girl gulps the liquid down faster, trying to quell the voice._

\---

_She's missed this._

_Valerie is in between her legs, hovering above her. Rocking up into her, grinding intently, skin on hers._

_A hand cups her breast, and she moans into Val's mouth, sliding her hands everywhere she can reach._

_Blue eyes are determined, full of passion and care._

_"You're lovely." She says it in between kisses, feeling it inside her bones._

_This woman is the love of her life._

_Valerie moves up into her again, more deliberate, a smile on her--_

Lucille wakes up aroused, the urge so strong she must itch it.

She thinks of Valerie's breasts, of feeling that skin along her own. Of kisses, both chaste and passionately deep, as she rolls her fingers around herself. Brushes her other hand over her nipple.

The dream has got her going. The weeks she hasn't been able to do this with Valerie have contributed to this need, to this ache.

It's Val's fingers on her now. She mimics Val's pace, pretends that her breath is on her--

She hears the stairs creak and wrenches her hands out of her pyjamas, pulling the blankets higher.

"Are you up, Lulu?"

Richard. 

He hasn't appeared at the top of the stairs.

She is saved.

"I am--everything okay?"

"Just cooking breakfast next door, there's plenty if you want some--or there will be, if Charlie doesn't eat all the bacon."

"That sounds lovely Rich. I'll be down in a bit."

"Of course--I'll do my best to hold him off."

He laughs, and she hears him retreat.

That was a little too--

Her brain's caught up with her desires now, the mood killed.

Maybe Valerie will be feeling better in that regard tonight.

Lucille flings the blankets off, getting up.

Yes.

Breakfast now.

Valerie Dyer tonight.

\---

Val is a bundle of energy when she and Ruby get back just after 11, dumping her armful of bags on the kitchen table and smiling brightly at Lucille.

_Just like old times,_ Lucille thinks. 

"Are we expecting a kitchen sink to be delivered too?" Charlie asks, cheeky and grinning his gap-toothed smile.

"It's not that much," Val says. "Right, well, guess I'll go start on the lawn. I'm assuming the mower is in the garden shed, Char?"

Lucille watches confusion cross his face, her own brow furrowing at the statement.

"Thought you were joking," Ruby says from the fridge, paused in her filling up of it. "You should be resting your leg after all that walking."

"Nah--feels much better now so I'll just--"

"Val, you don't need to mow our lawn," Richard adds, "that mower is heavy and--"

"It's two weeks late like Charlie said yesterday, so it'll get me out in the air and it's good for my leg and I'd much rather help out than sit around reading a book--"

Lucille watches her argue her point at length, feeling the spark of something like...

Worry.

She's rambling, getting animated with Charlie now, who has stood up and is matching her sentence for sentence, reason for reason.

Something is wrong.

Lucille looks at Ruby and sees her already concerned. They catch eyes across the room before the older woman looks down in thought.

Something is occurring to her.

"...you won't let me because I'm a woman? I've ridden a bike through five inches of snow before so I can guarantee I'm strong enough to push a mower."

Lucille watches as Valerie turns, stepping out the door. Tab follows her, squeezing through the quickly closing door.

Charlie moves to follow her.

"Leave her Char," Ruby says to him, before turning to Lucille. "We need to discuss something."

Charlie is reluctant but comes to sit at the table while Ruby finishes her task.

"What's this about?" Richard asks as he and Betty pull out a myriad of items from the bags on the table. The collection includes scarves and gloves, socks, three books, numerous handkerchiefs, half a dozen jars of jam and a bunch of bananas and apples. There are four boxes of strawberries as well.

"Is this all Val's?" Lucille asks, inspecting the jams.

"Yes," Ruby says, shutting the fridge. "We stopped at every stall. And when I say every stall, I mean it." She sits down quickly, looking over the items on the table. "She practically asked each proprietor their life story, and about their jams or cheese or books. It was..." Ruby sighs, and looks up at Lucille. "Can I ask a question about her medication?"

Lucille's stomach drops. She nods.

"Can it make her hyperactive, because she was talking a mile a minute to those proprietors and wouldn't slow down, despite me telling her she should rest..."

The sound of the lawnmower trying to start reaches the five of them, Lucille turning her head towards the closed back door.

It's another side effect.

She needs to phone Doctor Turner now.

"It can do that. Panic attacks are also a side effect, but she had a few of them in the hospital after her accident so I...well, I don't know what I was thinking last night when she had one. Is it possible for me to use your telephone? I really should phone our doctor."

There's a symphony of approvals from the four of them.

Valerie is still trying to get the mower started, Tab barking once, twice.

"Lucille, I think there's..." Betty pauses, looking at Charlie before turning her eyes toward Ruby.

"What is it?" Lucille asks her, feeling trepidation grip her.

"When I came down this morning, she was making herself a coffee, I told her off cos you said it wasn't good for her. She brushed my worries aside and said she was feeling better, as if she hadn't spent last night cryin'. I went to reach around her to make myself a cup and thought I smelled alcohol on her breath. I was only just up out of bed so I thought maybe I was mistaken."

"There's a hiding spot in your flat," Charlie says abruptly, and all four of them turn their heads his way.

"You know about that?" Ruby asks quietly.

"Of course I do. I may be a drunk but I'm not stupid."

Lucille lets the conversation drift off around her, standing and approaching the back door.

Valerie is flinging her arm up repeatedly, trying to get the motor going by the starter cord. Her frustration and anger are evident in her posture. Tab is hanging close, waiting for success.

She thinks back to that boundless energy this morning, when it had seemed as if Valerie was overdoing her happiness to kick start something in her mind.

She wasn't supposed to be drinking coffee on her medication.

Alcohol either, for multiple reasons.

"Did you check your hiding spot?" Lucille asks as she watches Valerie.

"As I said, I thought I'd--I probably should..."

Lucille hears a chair scrape and then hears footsteps heading toward the stairs.

Charlie admits he mentioned it yesterday to Val, unaware it was a significant problem. Richard and Ruby debate whether she would do such a thing.

She needs to call Doctor Turner.

Instead, she opens the door and heads down the yard towards Valerie.

Tab sees her and races up. 

Her love is cursing under her breath.

"Stop that now, Val," she requests, trying to keep herself calm, despite her own frustration bubbling away in her gut.

"I can do it, the goddamn fucking thing just needs to work with me."

Something about that particular set of curse words makes her own frustration explode into fury.

Lucille wrenches the starter handle from Valerie, flinging it away, pushing Valerie in the chest so hard she stumbles back.

"What the fuck, Lu?!"

Tab's bark changes, lowering into a growl.

"Did you get up early this morning specifically to find Ru and Betty's alcohol?"

Recognition blooms in Val's eyes, and Lucille sees the truth there.

She had.

Her heart breaks with Val's next words:

"I don't know what the fuck you're talking about."

It's a lie, as clear as the blue sky above them.

Lucille wants no part of it.

She turns on her heel and heads back up the yard towards number 48.

The alcohol is gone.

Her patience is as well.

She phones the doctor because she needs a way through this.

Shelagh must sense something in her voice because she puts him on straight away.

"She's had coffee and wine this morning, and a panic attack last night, and she's--"

The tears come then, hot and fast, Betty and Ruby quickly gathering her up in a hold as Doctor Turner consoles her from Poplar.

This will not do.

Lucille wipes at her face, trying to get her anguish under control.

She can't help Valerie like this.

She needs Valerie to help herself.

She needs--

A scream pierces the morning air, sudden, and Lucille's heart jumps into her throat.

\---

_The girl needs to move._

_Find something else to do, now that the mower won't work._

_She can't think about the significant one now, because she has to find something to do, something to do, something to--_

_Val, we need to talk, sweetheart._

_It's the man._

_The girl does not want to talk. Talking will lead to--_

_She will not remember. She will not._

_The garden shed needs cleaning._

_Yes._

_She steps back towards it._

_It's a mess of boxes and tools and things put out of sight, out of mind. Enough floor space for the mower to be slid in there._

_It's perfect._

_She cannot remember, if she has something to do. Something to ask, or buy, or get to._

_Something to distract herself with._

_The shed is perfect._

_What is going on with you, Valerie?_

_The man will not leave her alone._

_Will not let go of her._

_His grip is enough to brui--_

_Her mind is hurtled back 21 years, to the place she had not wanted to go._

_The monster is yelling at her, demanding an answer in front of a building she has always feared._

_Larkhill._

_This is how she'd known where to walk. Where to turn and where to stop._

_Its imposing stature has nothing on the monsters._

_Do you hear me, girly?!_

_His words pierce her ears, his stale breath against her cheek._

_She stutters out that she hears him._

_He put his filthy cock where it don't belong. I'd rather he put it in you--_

_The monster's hand suddenly cups her below area, grabbing at it._

_It's done so casually it makes her sick._

_\--the disgusting, filthy sodomite._

_The girl does not move--_

Valerie cannot move.

She is frozen, breath stuck in her lungs.

Remembering.

\---

_The man knows immediately that something is wrong, his beautiful niece's face stilling as her eyes widen._

_She is seeing something from somewhere else entirely, lost to it now as she had been the night before._

_He lets go of her and steps forward, wrapping his arms carefully around her._

_As soon as his hands and chest touch her, she screams._

_He snaps his hands away immediately and steps back, watching as she falls to the grass, eyes on him now as if he is the devil himself._

_The dog is whining._

_Val is paused there, lost in horror, before her blue eyes blink, coming back to the present._

_She breaks down then, and he bends to comfort her._

_She clambers away from him into the garden shed, slipping on her backside into the only space available. A box teeters off balance, threatening to fall on her._

_It doesn't, steadying itself instead._

_Tab sniffs at Val's foot, then climbs in on top of her, licking at her face._

_The man feels his heart shatter as he watches his niece dissolve into her tears, with nowhere to hide from the concerned affection of a black labrador._

_He knows it's his father looming over her, long gone from the world, but somehow still present._

_Still there in them both._

_He will not let this beautiful girl suffer the way he has._

_He will not let the bastard win._


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Lucille watches the dog closely._
> 
> _He's followed Val around like a bad smell these last couple of days. She's watched him lap up the attention Val has offered him, his quiet and faithful temperament giving Val something in return. A kindness without strings attached._
> 
> _"Good boy, Tab--you're a good boy."_

Lucille hands the phone to Ruby and races through the house, hitting her elbow on the back door frame in her rush.

She allows herself to swear once.

She can see Charlie down near the garden shed, crouching in front of Val who is--

Cowered.

She is sobbing, deeply guttural, even as Tab inspects her, licking at her face.

Lucille feels her heart clench as she runs down, her anger and pain evaporating.

"Charlie, what happened?" she asks as she reaches him, moving past on her way to--

Tab barks sharply, warning her off. She can see a change in his demeanour immediately as he turns directly at them.

He's in protective mode.

She stills.

"It's my father," Charlie says. "I'm sure of it. She screamed when I touched her."

Lucille feels a burst of white-hot anger towards Val's grandfather, remembering June's words in the hospital. He'd been a violent man towards his family, Charlie bearing the brunt of it.

She feels sick, her mind racing over the possibilities of how he'd hurt Valerie.

Tab is poised, keenly watching them as Richard and Betty lean down beside her.

"He won't bite," Betty says.

"He will--look at his tail and ears." Richard lifts a hand and points.

Tab barks once, a warning.

"He's old and not aggressive at all," Richard continues. "He must know something's wrong with Val." 

The woman in question is crying terribly, nose running badly and tears falling fast. 

Lucille watches helplessly as Val's breathing gets shallower.

If she has a panic attack now...

Her own eyes are watering in sympathy, her heart thundering away in her chest.

Another person is approaching.

Ruby bends down. "Your doctor friend is on his way."

Lucille nods.

She's going to need his advice.

She has no idea what to do. Where to go from here.

Her girl is in pain and--

She drops onto her knees, kneeling there on the grass, knowing she needs to coax Tab into calming down. Into letting her get to Val.

"Will waving food at him get him to move?" Betty asks.

"Doubt it," Charlie replies. "Tony and Phillip are not going to believe a word of this. Summer flies don't even bother him."

Lucille watches the dog closely.

He's followed Val around like a bad smell these last couple of days. She's watched him lap up the attention Val has offered him, his quiet and faithful temperament giving Val something in return. A kindness without strings attached. 

"Good boy, Tab--you're a good boy."

He watches her back, suspicious.

She doesn't know how she's going to--

Valerie suddenly sits forward, reaching her arms around the dog and pulling him back to her.

He melts into her embrace, turning back into her, sniffing at her face as she continues to cry.

Val knows they're here.

Lucille takes the opportunity to scoot forward on her knees a few centimetres.

Tab growls quickly, but he's mostly distracted by Val, not as aggressive as before.

"Easy, Lulu," Richard tells her softly.

"Can you tell me what happened, precious?"

Valerie wipes at her nose, unsuccessful. "He h-hurt Uncle Charlie. Punched him so hard he broke his cheek."

Lucille knows this. Charlie had gone over the events of that day the night before, after Val had mercifully fallen back to sleep in his arms. Val had been there, hiding from sight below the bar. She'd only been seen by Charlie and her grandfather before running away. 

June had never mentioned her presence when she'd recalled the memory in the hospital. 

For some reason, Val had forgotten she was there. Richard had wondered out loud if the event was simply too traumatic for eleven-year-old Valerie to deal with.

"Charlie's okay though, isn't he? He's right here beside me."

Val looks in his direction.

"He had b-blood all over his shirt when he g-grabbed me."

Lucille peers at her, trying to understand. She looks at Charlie to see if he knows what Val's referring to.

"Think she's talking about Dad." He's bewildered. "She ran off before he even..." He turns his niece's way. "When did he grab you, sweetheart?"

"After...he slapped me and told me to get in the van."

Lucille feels her chest starting to tighten with worry. With fear.

"Where did you go in the van, precious?"

Val cries harder, Tab sniffing and whining at her. Her hands pat at him, but Lucille can see she's shaking.

She needs to get closer.

All she wants to do is take her in her arms and comfort her. Take her sadness away.

She shuffles forward again on her knees, knowing she'll have grass stains on her dress now.

Tab growls again and then barks once.

"Ssh," Val says in among her tears, hugging him to her. He calms, dropping his head to her chest.

Lucille could reach out and touch Val's gumboots.

She restrains herself from doing so, unsure if Tab would allow it. Valerie has a hold of him, a rapport with him that Lucille doesn't. She imagines he sees her as a danger to his friend, someone to keep away.

She needs to ask her question again, even though she can see it's hurt Valerie.

She has a suspicion she knows the answer already.

"Valerie, did you go to Larkhill in his van?"

Her love nods, looking down at Tab in her arms. "He hurt my arm. Asked me if I was a filthy queer like Uncle Charlie." Valerie huffs, eyes looking up at Lucille. "I told him I wasn't, even though I'd...even though Sally was starting to..."

She trails off, scratching at Tab's ear instead. He responds by trying to burrow closer to her.

Lucille doesn't know how Val would be doing if he wasn't there.

She hears Charlie sniffling from behind her, a presence shifting towards him. She knows it's Richard, coming to comfort him.

"Am I filthy, Lu?" Valerie asks quietly.

She hears someone on the other side of her gasp. Ruth or Betty.

"No, precious." She swallows the lump in her throat, blinking furiously to dispel her tears. "You're the purest, kindest, most wondrous person in the world. I know you don't believe in God, but no one He makes is filthy, Val. No one."

She watches Val mull it over. "If that's true, why did Pop touch me there?"

Her world tilts off its axis at Valerie's words, and she fights to realign herself as her heartbeat explodes in her ears.

She feels her family frozen behind her.

Val needs her.

"Where did he touch you, honey?"

Valerie looks down at Tab, who is looking back up at her.

She's shaking badly now, hands stopped on Tab's fur. Barely there. Beginning to cry once more, breaking down again.

Lucille feels her own tears spill freely down her cheeks. She wipes at them quickly.

_Not now. Later, when she's safe from this._

Lucille watches as Val pulls a shaking hand slowly down from Tab towards the area between her legs.

Ruby says _no_ behind her in disbelief.

"That fucker..." It's Charlie cursing, continuing on as Richard tries to calm him.

She blocks them out.

Valerie is zoned in on her, balling her eyes out. Tab is whining with worry.

Lucille needs to make sure, for Val's sake.

"Precious, was it over or under your clothes?"

"O-over."

"Just touching, Valerie? Nothing else?"

It seems to take an eternity for Valerie to nod. 

Lucille exhales sharply, watching as Val lets the dog go, leaning forward as if an invisible weight is crushing her.

She shuffles forward on her knees, prepared to be bitten, pain be damned.

She needs to get to--

_Please Lord, please--_

Her intentions are pure, and someway, somehow, Tab realises this.

He accepts Lucille's pat to his head, still whining over Valerie, but he shifts to the side, allowing her access to his friend.

"Val, look at me now."

Blue eyes do so, swimming with hurt and fear and--

Shame.

She looks so small.

"Is it okay if I hold you?"

Val nods, sniffling.

Lucille slides her hands around her waist and pulls her up into her lap as best she can in the small space. She holds her impossibly close.

She bites her lip as Valerie cries out, loud and unrestrained, lost in the thick of it.

"I've got you, Val--I've got you now."

There's no ice cream between them this time but she feels the cold sink deep into her bones, the way it had the day Elsie died.

It buries itself enough to reach her soul.

She hopes that this is the bottom of Valerie's despair.

She needs to talk to her. To tell her.

"I prayed for help the night of that snowstorm," she says quietly, rocking Val a little in her arms. 

"Asked the good Lord for His assistance, because I was cold, and not feeling well, and had no clue where I was going." 

Valerie's relaxed a little in her arms. Lucille knows she's hearing her.

"And He listened and sent me you. You opened the Nonnatus front door and welcomed me in, and patched me up. Warmed me with that smile of yours, and your care. And ever since then you've been caring for me, with that huge heart of yours, that feels too much sometimes."

Their family has gotten closer, their presence a comfort to her. Tab has settled back near Charlie, Valerie's uncle quietly praising him. She can hear the thump of his tail on the grass.

She breathes Valerie in. "So now it's my turn to take care of you because that's what partners do. I made you a promise, in front of God, to love you and to look after you, for better or for worse. I'm going to be here, for your good days and your bad days, and everything else that's in between."

Someone's hand -- small and warm -- settles in the middle of her back.

Ruth's.

"Today is a bad day. Tomorrow might be as well. I wish I could fight everything and everyone that has ever hurt you, but I can't. All I can do is help you get through your bad days so we can get back to the good ones. They're going to come back, someday in the near future. I have faith that you and I can find them again together."

"We'll help," Charlie says assuringly.

"In any way we can," Betty adds.

Ruth and Richard agree wholeheartedly.

"I'm with you, okay? Your aunts and uncles are. Your mum is. Everyone we know loves you and wants the absolute best for you. I want the best for you. I want you and I need you and I'm going to love you until...pigs fly in the sky."

_Yes._

__

__

__

__

_Forever._

"Might I interrupt," Richard says quickly, "There's a Turkish saying that basically translates to _until the fish climb the Poplar tree._ Seems more apt, yes?"

Valerie lifts her head from Lucille's shoulder then, sitting back to look at her, as Charlie laughs at Richard.

Her eyes are red, cheeks puffy.

Lucille thinks she's beautiful. "There you go," she quips. "Piggies flying and fishies climbing. Next time I want to say _I love you_ in public, I'll throw you a ham sandwich instead."

It's something Val would say, then laugh at for five minutes. She sees the visual cross Val's mind, blue eyes crinkling before a huff of watery amusement escapes her.

Lucille smiles. "This 'make Valerie Dyer laugh everyday' agreement is rather easy. Maybe I'll get Rich to write down some of his best jokes."

"Nothing funnier than an accountant," Ruby says.

The three of them cackle, Richard protesting as they laugh.

Lucille knows it's stress relief.

She can see Valerie knows it too. 

A forehead tilts her way and she meets it with her own, drowning out everything other than her.

"I'm sorry I lied," Val whispers.

"I understand why you did it--I just want you to be honest with me. I'm annoyed at myself for thinking you were okay this morning."

Blue eyes close. "I didn't want to...remember. Knew I was going to."

She hears and feels Val let out a shaky exhale.

"I'm here, Valerie. We can talk about it as much or as little as you want to. Doctor Turner is on his way too, if you'd like to speak to him about it. You're not alone with this, okay?"

"I just want to...sleep for two days."

"That's okay too. How about we head inside and you can rest while we wait for the doc?"

Lucille sighs when she feels Val nod, knocking her head a little. 

She lets out a chuckle in response. "You really do have a bowling ball for a head."

Val slaps her back once, and with it, Lucille knows they're going to be okay.

\---

Val sleeps for most of the next two days, shuffling between the loft and the lounge room couch. Lucille reads by her side, one of Charlie's new books about a fellow who feels like he's a woman. It's insightful and harrowing at the same time. She'd never considered that there would be people out there with that particular set of circumstances. 

It's another way to live, she supposes, another way to feel and get by as. 

Against the grain.

She knows a little about that feeling.

She really should call her mother.

Tell her of this great and miraculous love she's found. Explain what Valerie means to her.

For now, all she needs to do is coax Valerie back into the sunshine where she belongs.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Turkish saying for 'when fish climb poplar trees' is balık kavağa çıkınca. I am definitely unable to say that properly.
> 
> Charlie's book that Lucille reads is _I Want What I Want_ by Geoff Brown. Published in the UK in 1966, it is one of the first novels that spoke in a realistic manner about transsexuality. It predates Christine Jorgensen's autobiography and Dr Harry Benjamin's medical book _The Transexual Phenomena_ by a year.

**Author's Note:**

> If you're in need of help, please seek it. Here's a link for a list of global mental health resources.  
> https://checkpointorg.com/global/


End file.
